That's where I see we're at with this "tax something to make it more affordable" stuff.
No, the analogy doesn't work.
Of course you would pay less for a house with all its windows smashed, because you'd have to pay to put new windows in (and to replace them every year). But a house with all its windows smashed in is a worse house; it's not weatherproof. So you'd be getting a lousier house at a cheaper price.
But taxing a house to cover the cost of the services it recieves — power, water, sewage, roads, public transport, public amenities, etc — is not analogous to smashing all its windows. The services do, in fact, significantly enhance the utility, and therefore the value, and therefore the price, of the house. Smashing the windows doesn't work that way at all.
Right now, if you buy a house, you are also buying the future benefit of all the services that the house receives. Of course, the services, when provided, will partly be paid for by service charges — but only partly. The rest of the services will be paid for out of taxation. But that's taxes levied on all taxpayers, not just on property owners, so that represents a net transfer of wealth to property owners.
That's a materially valuable thing. The housing market being tight, if you're not prepared to pay the present value of the future transfer of wealth that will accrue to you through taxpayer-subsidised services, someone else will be, so you won't get the house.
The result is that to buy a house you have to, in effect, prepay the present value of the services you will receive as a property owner that you won't be paying for through service charges. The cost of houses would fall if we didn't front-load the payment for services in this way, and instead let people pay for the services provided to their property through a property tax.
In countries where they do this, and where property taxes are set locally rather than nationally, we can see this at work — people have to pay measurably less for a house in suburb A, with high property taxes, than for a similar house in adjacent suburb B, with low property taxes.
If we wanted to lower property prices in Ireland, settting property taxes at a level that covered the cost of the services that enhance the value of property would be an obvious step.
Note that it wouldn't make housing more affordable, because you'd still have to pay the full cost of the services over time - what you'd save on the swings of house purchase you'd lose on the roundabout of property taxes. But it would make house
purchase more affordable, because it wouldn't front-load the value of future services, and would enable you to pay for them over time, with the benefit of (hopefully) rising disposable income due to career progression, etc.