Ireland housing crisis causes hundreds to line up around block for hours to view apartments

An influx of people and shortage of properties has contributed to a housing crisis in Ireland where hundreds of tenants have been spotted lining up around corners to view rental properties in Dublin.

Over 150 people were lined up in Dublin on Tuesday night to view a three-bedroom house on the market for roughly $1,800 per month as the area deals with a housing shortage that has caused Dublin real estate agents to implement a lottery system for viewings, The Daily Mail reported.

Ireland’s booming economy has brought an influx of employees into the country who are able to afford higher housing prices. This increased demand has contributed to costs going up. A shortage of properties has also exacerbated a crisis that traces back to the Irish government’s housing policies, one expert told Fox News Digital.

“They do have a demand for more housing but what they haven’t done is keep up with it by creating a supply,” Cato Institute Senior Fellow Michael D. Tanner told Fox News Digital. “They’ve embarked on a very anti-housing set of policies.”

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Tanner cited various zoning laws and restrictions that have made it “difficult to build” in Ireland, adding that the country has embarked on a “jihad against landlords” by imposing rent controls and increasing taxes on rental income.

“They really went after the landlords and the end result was that nobody wanted to build any housing,” Tanner said. “Even if people would do it, it was very difficult to build it, so they now have a lot fewer housing units available to meet the increasing population growth.”

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A view of a rough sleeper’s tents along the Grand Canal in Dublin during the final days of the level five COVID-19 lockdown.
(Photo by Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Housing policies that are marketed as being “pro-tenant” have a net result of making it less profitable and therefore less desirable for developers to build more rental units, Tanner explained.

“If you combine that with an increased demand, you’ve got a basic economics 101 issue,” he added.

Demand for rental accommodation in Dublin is growing from…