Domesticky

A home is more than bricks and mortar.

It’s where life happens. Where babies take their first steps. Where you get irate about the immersion. Where family comes together and goes apart.

Where grief and joy eat at the same kitchen table, breakfast, lunch and dinner.

And yet, in the great game of Monopoly that is modern capitalism, your home is also an asset, a number on a spreadsheet, a gamble the banks are all too happy to make at your expense.

This all looms large for me as I prepare – mentally and physically – to leave the now much too big family home that my kids and I have enjoyed for nearly 20 years.

Like most people, the reality is that I didn’t buy a house.

I signed a deal with a bank that, over the course of a mortgage, would cost me at least twice the sticker price. So much for all the research and haggling. The stressing over percentages and repayment terms. The picking of the best of a bad lot that they would change the goalposts on anyway.

Interest rates up. Cost of living through the roof. Property taxes here. Maintenance costs there.

And all of it, always, rigged in the banks’ favour.

Because that’s the thing, isn’t it? No matter how carefully you play, the house always wins.

The Irish Property Market: A Racket Dressed as an Economy

In Ireland, we’ve made housing into an obscene lottery where the winners are landlords, vulture funds and the already-wealthy.

Renters are squeezed for every last euro, paying through the nose for the privilege of unstable tenancy. Homeowners are one financial crisis away from disaster. And first-time buyers? They’re drowning in a system that pretends to offer choice while ensuring that every road leads to debt.

The price of houses skyrockets, not because they’ve improved in quality, but because banks, developers, and government policies inflate the market at will.

And when the inevitable crash comes? Bailouts. For them. Never for the people actually living in these homes.

Landlordism: The Feudal System in Modern Drag

We don’t talk enough about how landlordism – this unchecked hoarding of property – has warped our society.

A house should be a home, not a profit engine for investors who’ve never set foot in their tenement kingdom.

But instead of treating housing as a basic right, we’ve let it become a speculative game.

We call it the ‘housing market’ as if people’s lives should be dictated by supply and demand, as if somewhere to live should be bought and sold like stocks.

Ireland is full of empty homes owned by landlords waiting for the ‘right’ time to rent or sell. Meanwhile, homelessness grows. Families live in hotels. Young people delay their futures indefinitely.

This is not a market failure – it’s a policy choice.

Public Housing: The Cure We Pretend Not to See

You want an example of a country that gets housing right? Look at Vienna. A city where 60% of people live in high-quality, state-owned or cooperative housing.

Where rent is affordable, stable and – get this – tied to income.

Where public investment in housing is seen as an asset to society, not a ‘handout’ or a ‘burden.’

Meanwhile, in Ireland, the government has spent decades selling off council homes, gutting social housing, and funnelling public money into landlords’ pockets through HAP (Housing Assistance Payment).

Instead of ensuring people have homes, we subsidise private greed.

A More Equitable System: Housing as a Right, Not a Commodity

So how do we fix it? We start by treating housing as what it is: essential infrastructure, not an investment portfolio.

1. Massive Public Housing Investment: Build state-owned homes at scale, remove private profit incentives from essential shelter, and ensure secure tenancies.
2. Stronger Rent Controls & Tenant Rights: If landlords can’t profit without exploiting tenants, then maybe they shouldn’t be landlords.
3. Vacancy & Hoarding Taxes: If you own a home and don’t use it, you should pay for the privilege of keeping it empty in a crisis.
4. Community-Led Housing Models: Cooperatives, co-housing, and land trusts take housing out of speculative markets and keep it permanently affordable.
5. Mortgage & Debt Reform: No more ever-changing goalposts. If a mortgage is agreed upon, it should not be subject to the whims of economic gamesmanship.

Ireland is a country that prides itself on community, on looking after its own. So why have we allowed our housing system to be hijacked by those who see homes as nothing more than financial instruments?

The house of cards will fall eventually. The question is, will we be crushed beneath it—or will we build something better in its place?