I spoke with a lady in an ice cream parlour not too long ago in Dingle town. She told me about a run down cottage in Ventry that was sold for well over two hundred thousand. The same property twenty years ago could have been bought for maybe ten thousand. Imagine if you had the know how back then and bought ten or twenty properties Today you would be a multi millionaire! A lot of people talk about business and how they can make money but nobody that I know had the brain to buy up run down houses in West Kerry. Or did they?
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| Ballytaggert house, 5.25 million, Dingle Peninsula |
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Raheens, Ventry, Dingle Peninsula, House Sold in 2022 for close to four hundred thousand.
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| Balyferriter, Dingle Peninsula, Cottage sold for over two hundred thousand. |
The recent story about a local man not being able to get planning permission to build on the peninsula hit national news. Breanndan O Beaglaoich built a house on a trailer and moved it onto his land. The difficulty in getting planning permission is widespread not just on the peninsula but all over Ireland. Many houses on the peninsula are actually halved and two families will live or stay in the one house. What I think is scandalous is local people and working class people who just can't afford a house, are left in limbo, with no security or peace of mind. They can be evicted at any time. It's absolutely disgraceful and it's a shame that this country is gone this way. The Dingle Peninsula is now a prime area which means that houses can fetch up to two or three thousand euros a week in the summer time. This means landlords do not want to rent and if they do rent then they will only rent for 9 months of the year. It's a huge problem and its been driven by rich landlords buying properties so they can have a holiday home on the Irish Costa Del Sol. Below is a chart of the highest house price per year agreed in Dingle Town. The houses are all second hand and are not new builds. Data is all correct and can be fact checked on the Irish property register website.
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| Highest price agreed per year for a second hand house in Dingle Town. |
As we speak the CSO have released figures of nearly one thousand Ukraine refugees are now living on the peninsula, the same can be said for Tralee town. How are we now gonna house some of these unfortunate people if we cannot house our own. The cruel reality is that it is impossible for people to buy houses on the peninsula if they start out as working class, unless they have land left to them or they are from farming backgrounds, then there is a chance that you can get planning when left land. If you are a run of the mill person with a retail job or a seasonal job its just not possible.
