Soaring home prices: Dysfunctional and exploitative

The latest house price figures show that, by any metric, we are bringing a knife to a housing-crisis gunfight. Recent data showed that Government figures on house completions were a gross overestimation. The crisis was not even being confronted properly much less resolved satisfactorily.

To rub salt into that wound, and to confirm that the laws of supply and demand hold this society in a choking half-nelson, Daft has reported that Dublin house prices rose by an average of €155,000 since 2012. Dublin prices are 70% above the 2012 low-point. Nationwide the average asking price has jumped by more than 54%. This is not so much driving a horse and four through the ideas that sustained this society for generations but more swinging a wrecking ball through the reasonable hopes of those who would buy a home. No ordinary worker can hope to compete in this spiral that looks ever more like inhuman economic subjugation.

So, what is the answer?

Certainly, something far, far more radical than anything offered by this Fine Gael-led Government. Certainly, something that does not depend on the whims of the market as it has shown a cold indifference to social needs. Dangerous, right-wing nationalism is on the rise all around the world, a change driven by many things including institutionalised inequality and exploitation — which seems a pretty good description of our dysfunctional, contrived housing market today.

The alarm bells are ringing.