The Ipsos Housing Monitor is a new 30-country study – including Ireland – looking at how people perceive their own and their country’s housing situation, and the challenges facing both.
Our survey has been prepared in response to the growing attention given to housing and the influence it has on economies, societies and politics. For several years it has become common to hear and read about housing crises in Ireland and many other countries, and the World Economic Forum has described a “global housing crisis”.
The housing crisis is related to several factors including the supply of new housing, rising house prices and rents, poor housing conditions, insufficient protections for renters, and rising homelessness. The nature and extent of these varies between different regions and markets (as well as within them), but our survey finds much commonality in public opinion.
We found two key areas of interest for Ireland:
- Aspirations towards home ownership
- What the ideal home looks like
- ASPIRATIONS TOWARDS HOME OWNERSHIP
- A nation of aspiring homeowners: Over four in five Irish adults (81%) agree that most people in Ireland aspire to own their own home, higher than the global average of 73%.
- Widespread housing pessimism: 78% feel that even if today’s young people work hard and get good jobs they will have a hard time getting the right kind of housing. People in Ireland are more likely than most other countries to agree with this. Particularly striking is that this is also the view of large majorities in Australia, New Zealand and Canada where it is suggested that many Irish young people are emigrating to in order to escape the housing challenge at home.
- Current struggles not unique to today’s young people: Every generation thinks that is/was hard for them to get on the housing ladder than it was for the previous generation. 70% of millennials feel it is harder for them to get a home that it was for their parent’s generation, but 63% of the Baby Boomer generation feel it was the same when they were settling down.
- Homeownership brings security: 68% in Ireland believe it’s hard to feel secure in life if you do not own your own home – hardly surprising given that 73% in Ireland feel it is too easy for landlords to take advantage of tenants.
For further information, please contact Sarah Chapman (sarah.chapman@ipsos.com) or Kieran O’Leary (kieran.oleary@ipsos.com), or see the global results here: https://www.ipsos.com/en/global-housing-monitor-2025
Technical note:
These are the results of a 30-country survey conducted by lpsos on its Global Advisor online platform and, in India, on its lndiaBus platform, between Friday, November 22 and Friday, December 6, 2024 in 29 countries and between Friday December 20 and Friday January 3, 2025 in New Zealand. For this survey, lpsos interviewed a total of 22,279 adults aged 18 years and older in India, 18-74 in Canada, Republic of Ireland, Malaysia, New Zealand, South Africa, Türkiye, and the United States, 20-74 in Thailand, 21-74 in Indonesia and Singapore, and 16-74 in all other countries.
The sample consists of approximately 1,000 individuals each in Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Spain, and the U.S., and 500 individuals each in Argentina, Belgium, Chile, Colombia, Hungary, Indonesia, Ireland, Malaysia, Mexico, the Netherlands, Peru, Poland, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Sweden, Thailand, and Türkiye. The sample in India consists of approximately 2,200 individuals, of whom approximately 1,800 were interviewed face-to-face and 400 were interviewed online.
Samples in Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, and the U.S. can be considered representative of their general adult populations under the age of 75. Samples in Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Indonesia, Ireland, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru, Singapore, South Africa, Thailand, and Türkiye are more urban, more educated, and/or more affluent than the general population. The survey results for these countries should be viewed as reflecting the views of the more “connected” segment of their population.
India’s sample represents a large subset of its urban population — social economic classes A, B and C in metros and tier 1-3 town classes across all four zones.
The data is weighted so that the composition of each country’s sample best reflects the demographic profile of the adult population according to the most recent census data. “The Global Country Average” reflects the average result for all the countries and markets in which the survey was conducted. It has not been adjusted to the population size of each country or market and is not intended to suggest a total result.
When percentages do not sum up to 100 or the ‘difference’ appears to be +/-1 percentage point more/less than the actual result, this may be due to rounding, multiple responses, or the exclusion of “don’t know” or not stated responses.
The precision of Ipsos online polls is calculated using a credibility interval with a poll where N=1,000 being accurate to +/- 3.5 percentage points and of where N=500 being accurate to +/- 5.0 percentage points. For more information on Ipsos’ use of credibility intervals, please visit the Ipsos website.
The publication of these findings abides by local rules and regulations.
