More than 2,000 homes have been bulk purchased by investment and vulture funds since the Government announced it would end the sale of multiple units to funds or single buyers, the Dáil has heard.
Sinn Féin finance spokesman Pearse Doherty called “for a ban on these funds snapping up family homes” and said most purchases by vulture funds were now second-hand properties.
“Ordinary workers and families have no chance of competing with these funds. They hoover up homes and they drive up prices,” he said.
Introducing the party’s private member’s motion to end bulk buying, he said his party was simply asking the Government “to keep your word” because vulture funds were still buying up multiple units despite pledges to end the practice.
READ MORE
But Minister for Housing James Browne rejected the claim and insisted “sustained, practical and effective action has been taken”. The Government’s approach has been to “significantly restrict bulk purchasing”, and “disincentivising bulk purchasing in favour of individual private home ownership”, he said.
Doherty said 2,000 homes had been bulk purchased since 2021 “when these vultures snapped up a housing estate in Kildare” and “people’s blood was boiling”.
A stamp duty rate of 10 per cent was introduced that year to restrict the bulk purchase after the public outcry over the purchase of multiple units. This was increased to 15 per cent after Budget 2025.
The Donegal TD said the 2,000 figure was “only the tip of the iceberg” because funds could buy up to nine homes without having to pay the higher rate of stamp duty.
“People are sick to their back teeth with this nonsense you peddled out again about, ‘we need to attract more international capital’.” Nobody objected to international investment in the construction of houses and apartments.”
But investment funds buying second-hand homes did not deliver more housing supply, he said. “It just drives up prices plain and simple, and home ownership is collapsing under Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael.”
He said in 2021 then-taoiseach Simon Harris “said ‘bulk purchases cannot be tolerated’ ... Simon Harris is now Minister for Finance and vulture funds are still buying up family homes”.
Last week during finance questions the Tánaiste said bulk funds last year purchased 293 homes compared to 675 in 2023 and 396 in 2024, according to figure from Revenue Commissioners.
Browne said the housing crisis was his “absolute priority” and it was “simply not credible to suggest this Government has stood idly by”.
“We are not indifferent to the impact of bulk purchasing,” and “sustained, practical and effective action has been taken”, he said.
In 2021, the Section 28 planning guidelines were introduced to regulate commercial institutional investment in housing.
[ ‘There’s no humanity any more’: Homebuyers on ‘soul-destroying’ bidding warsOpens in new window ]
Browne said, “These guidelines ensure that the new own-door houses and what are called duplex units in lower density developments cannot be bulk purchased in a way that displaces individual buyers or social and affordable housing.”
He added that since May 2021, planning permissions covering 63,962 houses and duplex units have included conditions restricting bulk purchasing or multiple sales to a single purchaser.
These measures, along with the higher stamp duty, “have materially changed market behaviour and secured thousands of homes for individual purchasers rather than institutional investors”, Browne said.
