Housing bubble starting to pop?

SimpleSam06

Do-more wrote:

Was passing Bertie's local today and the two lads staffing Lisney's across the way were standing in the window looking out, with their hands in their pockets, just taking a short break from the mad rush I'm sure;)

I wonder how many more excuses the EAs can come up with. They've been doing well so far, what with it being the slow season during the summer, a levelling off during the last few months, and now its tension before the budget that has failed to explain lack of demand. Whats next, people are spending too much money on christmas presents to be able to afford houses?

On a not-really-unrelated note, I see SUV sales are making headlines as dropping fast for the first time in six years...

Sponge Bob

DonalMcTavish wrote:

Was just sitting here looking out the window.
The house across the road has been for sale for 3 weeks. Not much action in the evenings i've been home.
But tonight there must have been at least 30 people in 2 groups who went in.

You are a dreadful salesman Donald, you expect us to believe that estate agents bring groups of 15 people at a time to view houses when selling , do they **** !

Maybe they were prospective tenants , all 15 of them, thats more like you estate agents eh!

OOPS I meant HARD DISK COPY!!!
No I didnt chop down the Amazon
I didnt do it......

D'Peoples Voice

SimpleSam06 wrote:

I wonder how many more excuses the EAs can come up with. They've been doing well so far, what with it being the slow season during the summer, a levelling off during the last few months, and now its tension before the budget that has failed to explain lack of demand. Whats next?

It will be the political parties causing uncertainty over stamp duty approaching the election. We'll hear how FTBs are holding off until they see who gets elected.

miju

at the moment the EA's are saying sales will traditionally "pick up" in march when all the new properties come on sale.........****ing hilarious reasoning.......the market never picked up sept when it's traditionally busy (and this was BEFORE stamp duty was an issue at all) and then of course they neglact to consider that in order to sell all the new stock they'll have to get through the backlog of old stock first

Reyman

I'm following this thread with some interest because it gives a more realistic view of what's happening in the marketplace than I can get from any of the newspapers with their 'property advertising' interests.

I would like to say that when we had the last property slump in the 1980s, property did not fall in price. What happpened was that activity practically ceased i.e. no houses came on the market except for 'stress' sales eg. Executors sales etc.

So I'm not certain of this theory of a huge 'backlog' forcing prices down, though it may do

Sponge Bob

Reyman wrote:

I would like to say that when we had the last property slump in the 1980s, property did not fall in price. What happpened was that activity practically ceased i.e. no houses came on the market except for 'stress' sales eg. Executors sales etc.

Myth. The last property slump (c 1981-1987) occured at a time of high inflation unlike now. Inflation generally was 20% in 1981, house prices stayed static. House prices fell in real terms by 16% in that year because every other good inflated in price .

There was a boom like the last 10 years in the 1970s . my ould fella bought a house for £10,000 in 1972 that was worth £50,000 in 1979 (and about £50000 in in 1987 too) .

AGAIN, inflation was very high during that period in the 1970s so it did not rise by 500% in real terms, maybe only 200%-300% although both 1975 and 1981 saw the highest inflation ever ( 20-25% in one year) . The period 1972-1985 (roughly ) is called the Great Inflation period and the stats for Ireland are in this link about Great Inflation as are interest rates
See page 32 and 12 ( of 67) for the data supporting my assertions in this post.

So I'm not certain of this theory of a huge 'backlog' forcing prices down, though it may do

We only had 10% of our housing stock empty either side of that 1980s slump and its nearer 17% now. The table below is taken from census data where someone went to every house to check in April 2006



As inflation will not help to massage the slump this time (its only 3%) the prices will have to drop owing to oversupply .

They cannot so as they did in the 1980s , stay static with high inflation meaning they are falling in real terms but still worth the same . Its Simple really.

Anotehr way of looking at 1981 was that there was no money around to rise prices with because the government was taking 20% of the house value in interest rates off every mortgage owner EVERY YEAR :eek:

SimpleSam06

miju wrote:

and then of course they neglact to consider that in order to sell all the new stock they'll have to get through the backlog of old stock first

Oh yes, lets not forget that two is the new one, with the minimum number of first time buyers able to afford a new house being two, so the 17% of housing being available for sale is in fact 25%, adjusting for the fact that not all house buyers are FTBs, otherwise it would be 34%.



Its terrible how fiddling numbers can come back to bite REAs in the ass. Just terrible.

well we are witnessing immediate drops in asking prices after yesterdays budget.

http://www.thepropertypin.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=366

DonalMcTavish

Sponge Bob wrote:

You are a dreadful salesman Donald, you expect us to believe that estate agents bring groups of 15 people at a time to view houses when selling , do they **** !

Maybe they were prospective tenants , all 15 of them, thats more like you estate agents eh!

I take it you never went to a viewing of a house after 6pm. i have. If you did you would see several people in each viewing because people cant look at houses during work hours.

DonalMcTavish

SimpleSam06 wrote:

Donnie your Polishness is coming more and more into question; I'm reporting you to the mods for being a shill, and I suggest everyone else that cares about honest debate does too. If you're a real estate agent, as you almost certainly are, just come out and say it, you'll get a lot more respect than pretending to be one of a fictional immigrant minority aching after Irish real estate.

SimpleSam06 wrote:

Just a thought here Donnie, I don't know if you or any of the other real estate agents have had this one asked of you yet, but basically what you are all saying is that we should abandon the old paradigm of 3x or 4x single income as a reasonable guide price for housing, and instead apply that to couples.

I pointed out that you were a huge €11K off (and not for the first time in this thread) in your calculation of a couple on €30K eachs after tax income and you come out with the above comments. Its ok to be wrong you know. It was just a correction (which you ignored). No need to question my job or my nationality.

You have such a blinkered view of anything to do with the housing market. Why do you accuse me of being an estate agent? Why dont you just reply to my posts and not attack me? Is not that against the rules of boards.
You constantly question my main job (my other is a salseman for an it company in the evenings and weekends - not that it matters) or my nationality (both of which i stated earlier and both of which are no longer relevant to the post you are now attacking me personally on.)
Surely the moderators should be looking at you not me.

BigEejit

DonalMcTavish wrote:

Actually they pull down over 51K after tax (before mortgage interest relief of about €1600 ).

Thats over €4200 a month between them.

As you mentioned it:

Where did you get those figures from? when I worked in Ireland until the end of 2004 I was getting crucified by that bastage of a taxman .... between my wife and myself we were paying an awful lot more in taxes than the 1/6 you are pointing at. What arent you including? prsi? pension? (I know its not a tax, but you had better treat it as a tax if you know whats good for you) ...add on car loans and cost of commuting to your usual electricity/heating/council charges/etc etc and there isnt a lot left in the kitty....

Calina

Interestingly enough that figure made zero sense to me either based on my own position.

Calina

DonalMcTavish wrote:

I take it you never went to a viewing of a house after 6pm. i have. If you did you would see several people in each viewing because people cant look at houses during work hours.

Well I have and the most I ever saw was ca 15. I find that the 9am on a Saturday morning if it's a house is generally more popular. Lately it's been one or two at a post 6pm viewing.

I live in Dublin by the way.

SimpleSam06

DonalMcTavish wrote:

I pointed out that you were a huge €11K off (and not for the first time in this thread) in your calculation of a couple on €30K eachs after tax income and you come out with the above comments. Its ok to be wrong you know.

If I'm wrong I'm wrong, and fair enough if I am. Better information than I have to hand is always welcome, but judging by several posters since then, theres not much wrong with what I'm saying. I'll leave that up to them to sort out, however, since as I said they know better than me.

DonalMcTavish wrote:

It was just a correction (which you ignored). No need to question my job or my nationality.

If you are misrepresenting yourself as a Polish person in an effort to make out that there is a large immigrant population buying houses (a "fact" that has been already thoroughly debunked), you are well out of order. So I'm calling you out on it. Your failure to respond to the several questions already put to you in Polish combined with your well and truly bullish stance makes you a prime candidate for being a shill, which I'll stand by until proved otherwise.

DonalMcTavish wrote:

my nationality (both of which i stated earlier and both of which are no longer relevant to the post you are now attacking me personally on.) Surely the moderators should be looking at you not me.

Feel free to PM the moderators any time you want to, I already have. As I said, if you are an REA, own up, you'll get a hell of a lot more respect than if you're making out to be something you are not. If you'd rather make out that your earlier claim to being Polish has no relevance to the discussion for some reason, well that's up to you.

gurramok

I walked by 8 estate agents offices today on my journey from Phibsboro to the city centre, not a single customer inside (at 2:45pm outgoing and 4:30pm return)
Noticed a snip in paper which said that 75% of ssia's so far have been put away for savings and rest mostly to pay off debts. (http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/stories.php3?ca=9&si=1739534&issue_id=14990)

No splurge there to rescue the housing market.

BobbyD10

gurramok wrote:

No splurge there to rescue the housing market.

Prime Time's programme last night won't help either.
Very interesting insight.

Sponge Bob

BobbyD10 wrote:

Prime Time's programme last night won't help either.
Very interesting insight.

The prime time program will really put the BUYERS off what with

• toxic mortgage brokers
• toxic builders
• toxic planners who enforce nothing
  
• toxic auctioneers

all waiting out there to 'catch' the unsuspecting buyer like a giant flytrap. On the other hand the renter has at least got the tenancy thing to complain to .

kluivert

Very sorry I missed that Prime Time show last night.

Did it inlcuded EA's from Dundalk or something.

Can someone give a quick review of what happened in the show please.

aphex™

kluivert wrote:

Very sorry I missed that Prime Time show last night.

Did it inlcuded EA's from Dundalk or something.

Can someone give a quick review of what happened in the show please.

They named a Dublin estate agent and had video footage of him talking to staff about supposedly pushing up the price of properties with non existant bids.

Rte had someone in the office who they loved to show their tricks to.

They also got info from a mortgage company so they could figure out how much a person could spend on a property and push them to that price (breach of Data Protection act). Mortgage company is 'ensuring it doesn't happen again'.

Another guy was in Dundalk (I think) and paid a deposit to estate agents but the developer hadn't signed it and the apartment never matreialised. The only way he got it was by paying more and adding 10 years to his mortgage.

At least thats what i'm after watching on rte.ie on the Prime Time site. I presume its from last night.

EDIT: They had a reconstruction of an auction with fake bidders in the room. This was talked about by a whistle-blower from the west of Ireland. He said if the buyer could afford it he'd push the price up higher than the house was worth.

BobbyD10

kluivert wrote:

Very sorry I missed that Prime Time show last night.

Did it inlcuded EA's from Dundalk or something.

It explained the case of a young man from Dundalk who had bought from the plans a 140,000 apartment i believe, in the introvening time house prices had accelerated and the development which he had bought into had increased substantially, at the time he purchased his would be dwelling he signed a contract of agreement, unfortunatly for him the developer didn't sign this contract and where not bound by it.

He then heard his apartment would cost him 35,000 more than he thought.
He was begininning to feel priced out of the market and with house prices still rising he gathered the extra money through SSIA, working extra hours and money from his parents.

It was just an example of gazzumping i think they called it.
I would say his case was one of many.

whizzbang

kluivert wrote:

Very sorry I missed that Prime Time show last night.

Did it inlcuded EA's from Dundalk or something.

Can someone give a quick review of what happened in the show please.

you can watch it here!
http://www.rte.ie/news/2006/1211/primetime.html
needs realplayer.

Reyman

kluivert wrote:

Very sorry I missed that Prime Time show last night.

Did it inlcuded EA's from Dundalk or something.

Can someone give a quick review of what happened in the show please.

They made four main points:
1. Estate agents can be in cahoots with mortgage providers to find out what your spending limit is & squeeze the maximum from you
2. Estate agents sometimes use false bidders at auctions to make prices move up
3. Estate agents will not tell you if they know there is something structurally wrong with a house they're selling
4. In a private treaty sell they will sometimes quote non-existent rival bidders to force your hand

BobbyD10

Reyman wrote:

They made four main points:
1. Estate agents can be in cahoots with mortgage providers to find out what your spending limit is & squeeze the maximum from you
2. Estate agents sometimes use false bidders at auctions to make prices move up
3. Estate agents will not tell you if they know there is something structurally wrong with a house they're selling
4. In a private treaty sell they will sometimes quote non-existent rival bidders to force your hand

All this takes place amongst one of the most important purchases people will make.
A sector which seems to be a free for all, un-regulated as regards management companies.
It did say however that everything they do is legal and that they are using that fact to their advantage.

Calina

BobbyD10 wrote:

It did say however that everything they do is legal and that they are using that fact to their advantage.

It might be more accurate to say that everything that they do is not illegal per se and they use that to their advantage.

aphex™

Breaking the Data Protection act (passing information on to 3rd party) isn't legal, for one.

I'd be amazed if there wasn't legislation governing auction rooms.

Calina

Reyman wrote:

3. Estate agents will not tell you if they know there is something structurally wrong with a house they're selling

In Denmark, I think that vendors are required to get a structural survey done and that is included in the vendor pack for any potential purchasers. The UK authorities looked into implementing this last year and in the face of overwhelming lobbying from vested interests, I think they backed down. If I remember rightly, it was suggested that if they introduced it, it would cause a property crash in the months before it was introduced. Obviously the rights of the people getting the money are more important than the rights of the people paying it out.

I don't currently own a house, but if I did and were selling it, I would have it done.

Calina

aphex&#8482 wrote:

Breaking the Data Protection act (passing information on to 3rd party) isn't legal, for one.

I'd be amazed if there wasn't legislation governing auction rooms.

I suspect that this refers to 1) not passing on bids to vendors or 2) closing out on a sale even if there is still some bidding interest and 3) phantom bidders - I mean, it might not be morally right but I bet finding the piece of legislation where it explicitly states that:

it is not permitted to inform a potential buyer of a property that another higher bid has been entered for the property by a third party when no such bid exists.

would be difficult. Sure it's a lie but it won't get them into jail.

As for not telling the vendor of a bid, I've had this comment: "I wouldn't insult the vendor by telling them of your ridiculously low bid". If I remember rightly it was a couple of grand below the ask - so I asked how it could be ridiculous in that context.

Very naive on my part.

kluivert

Am glad to see EA's are doing well for themselves.

This should be a regulated area like all other financial areas.

I was looking to buy a house very soon, but decided that to save and see where I am next year. Might just go work in Australia Amercia UK or whereever.

D'Peoples Voice

the bit on Primetime about the unfinished housing estates really pis*ed me off, because that causes social problems down the line!

It would seem that Local Authorities do not communicate. there was an example of one developer who have several unfinished housing estates in several local authority areas.
Surely there is a black list of developers to which each Local Authority has access, and each local Authority can add their own complaints about particular developers.
If a developer risks having future planning permissions turned down because of a poor history in other local authority areas, then you can be sure they would act very quickly to ensure things are down right.

How Dick Roche (head of local Authorities) and Noel Ahearn (Ireland's DEDICATED Minister for Housing) can put themselves forward for election next May having this crisis over the heads is mindboggling.
I didn't hear Noel Ahearn on the show last night, personally I think he should be sacked instantly!