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Housing Bubble Bursting

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  • Registered Users Posts: 8,219 ✭✭✭Calina


    Depends on the property type of course...how many trader uppers are going to want apartments per se?


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,698 ✭✭✭D'Peoples Voice


    indiewindy wrote: »
    Thats total desperationon the part of those builders, letting them out first will mean that anyone apart from a first time buyer will have to pay stamp duty when purchasing them, turning away a number of potential buyers
    At least those same builders will get to prove whether their rental expectations are realised or not - so often I've gone to a showhouse to be told that the developer expects any investor to receive X amount in rent, and that X is always higher than the mortgage repayments.


  • Moderators, Entertainment Moderators Posts: 12,916 Mod ✭✭✭✭iguana


    Calina wrote: »
    Depends on the property type of course...how many trader uppers are going to want apartments per se?

    Not many trader-uppers but you could have people looking to move to smaller properties due to their family having moved away. Or possibly in the coming years people who can no longer afford to pay for a bigger property and have to down-size. Having to pay stamp duty or not would make all the difference to a couple in that position.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 4,048 ✭✭✭SimpleSam06


    I'm a little confused, why do they need to take out mortgages to become buy to let investors? Can't they just rent out the properties as is, I mean it's not that expensive to put an advert in the paper. Or are they trying to cover the immediate expense of the construction by taking on more debt? That will end well...


  • Registered Users Posts: 4,748 ✭✭✭Do-more


    There are definetly some developers here in Mullingar who must be hurting. I was checking up on some of the developments that were amonst the last to start in the town. Two of them have sold no units whatsoever! (And have substaintial numbers built) Another has sold just 8 units. I'm told that one of the developers is in negotiations with one of the Dublin councils to purchase the entire development for social housing.

    invest4deepvalue.com



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  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 32,285 Mod ✭✭✭✭The_Conductor


    I'm a little confused, why do they need to take out mortgages to become buy to let investors? Can't they just rent out the properties as is, I mean it's not that expensive to put an advert in the paper. Or are they trying to cover the immediate expense of the construction by taking on more debt? That will end well...

    Its because a buy-to-let mortgage is considerably less to finance, and more secure from a banks perspective, as it involves an ongoing revenue stream, than a massive loan for the purpose of building the units in the first place, when a builder is then left sitting on a non-performing asset. Additionally its also a very tax efficient way of handling the units, sheltering the bulk of any income the builder may achieve from the units.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 4,048 ✭✭✭SimpleSam06


    smccarrick wrote: »
    Its because a buy-to-let mortgage is considerably less to finance, and more secure from a banks perspective, as it involves an ongoing revenue stream, than a massive loan for the purpose of building the units in the first place, when a builder is then left sitting on a non-performing asset. Additionally its also a very tax efficient way of handling the units, sheltering the bulk of any income the builder may achieve from the units.
    Ah so they are paying off the massive single loan on completed properties with multiple buy to let mortgages, for tax reasons and to generate income. It still seems like a bit of a risky prospect given that they already had to take out their expenses from the single loan and pay the interest on it until now.


  • Registered Users Posts: 5,297 ✭✭✭ionapaul


    Funny leading article in the Residential Property supplement in today's Irish Times trying to spin this move by the developers as a canny investment move on their parts, taking 'advantage of the high rents' to be had at the moment! I had to laugh out loud at this, some of the developers will no doubt taking this route to stave off insolvency and the VIs insisting the inability to sell any more apartments, new or 2nd hand, to the Irish market as a sign of a stable market.

    We're still waiting for the property market to move upwards again in the Spring selling season...as others have said, the only question is whether that is Spring 2010, Spring 2011, Spring 2012 or beyond...


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 48 EnoughSaid


    SimpleSam - from the banks perspective they would have originally lent the development company a large amount of money that may not be secured on any particular asset (apart from the land) so that if the developer went bust then the bank would have the risk of some or all of the debt being a bad debt. If the original loan is repaid and is replaced with multiple buy-to-let mortgages then each buy-to-let mortgage is secured each property so it should reduce the risk for the bank.

    However, this strategy could be a bit more risky than the bank expects in the current economic climate, because the buy to let loans are secured on assets that is currently falling in value (houses), and as many developers are trying to do the same thing (rent out properties that they cannot sell), there will also be a glut of rental properties on the market so the developers may not be able to rent them all out.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 402 ✭✭newestUser


    Any comment on the latest Permanent TSB/ESRI figures? Prices down 1.3 % in the last month. That's the largest monthly fall this year so far if I'm right. Also, it bucks the trend of the rate of decrease in house prices decreasing (if you follow my drift). House price falls are accelerating, what's *that* going to do for sentiment?


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 4,048 ✭✭✭SimpleSam06


    newestUser wrote: »
    Any comment on the latest Permanent TSB/ESRI figures? Prices down 1.3 % in the last month. That's the largest monthly fall this year so far if I'm right. Also, it bucks the trend of the rate of decrease in house prices decreasing (if you follow my drift). House price falls are accelerating, what's *that* going to do for sentiment?
    Well it has led to a 50% spike in rental properties available nationwide in the last month and a half, according to daft at any rate... No doubt that will climb even higher with the recent news releases. I wonder how long that will take to impact rental prices, and how low they will go? I'd say maybe post christmas rents nationwide will come under serious pressure, which won't be alleviated for probably two or three years.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 6,718 ✭✭✭SkepticOne


    Commenting on the results, Niall O’Grady, Head of Marketing, permanent tsb bank said; “There’s little surprise in the figures for October which confirm that there was little spark in the market during the traditionally strong autumn selling season. Clearly potential purchasers remain cautious and demand is sluggish. Deferral of purchase decisions is now beginning to impact on the rental sector where rents are rising steadily in response to strong demand.”
    I've seen it repeated by VIs in the media lately that rents are currently shooting up. From what I can gather the first two quarters of this year did represent substantially rising prices and this was reported widely. But since then rents appear to be either flat or falling. I haven't seen reports any statistics of recent rises. The last Daft report for quarter 3 showed rents falling slightly as did the last CSO inflation report.

    Of course there will be some landlords who will try to pass on the full interest rate rises to their tenants but if they are not careful they will lose more than they gain. I would still expect anecdotes of rent rises to appear on forums like this.


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 8,486 ✭✭✭miju


    newestUser wrote: »
    Any comment on the latest Permanent TSB/ESRI figures? Prices down 1.3 % in the last month. That's the largest monthly fall this year so far if I'm right. Also, it bucks the trend of the rate of decrease in house prices decreasing (if you follow my drift). House price falls are accelerating, what's *that* going to do for sentiment?

    that report is a load of tosh and not reliable at all dogs on the street know the percentage is much higher than that. indeed there have been estate agents quoting at least 15%


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 402 ✭✭newestUser


    That may or may not be true, but the Permanent TSB/ESRI reports are the only housing market data that the 'Media of Record' (eg RTE, Irish Times) seem to report on. The contents of those reports are transmitted far more widely than statistics from any other sources.


  • Registered Users Posts: 16,655 ✭✭✭✭astrofool


    Does the bank use figures for homes gone sale agreed/sold, or asking prices of houses?

    If it's asking prices, then nobody is meeting them at the moment, and most go in bidding -10%, and meet in the middle, if at all.


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,594 ✭✭✭Pa ElGrande


    newestUser wrote: »
    That may or may not be true, but the Permanent TSB/ESRI reports are the only housing market data that the 'Media of Record' (eg RTE, Irish Times) seem to report on. The contents of those reports are transmitted far more widely than statistics from any other sources.
    Read Shane Ross article from the Sindo' in July this year. Not only that data they produce lags by about 3 months.
    Hail the house-price slump
    The conspiracy is in full throttle. Bankers, auctioneers, economists and other vested interests are circling the wagons, insisting that the media is to blame for the fall in prices. In any case, they claim , the crisis is being hyped. The industry is in denial. The conspirators are woefully wrong. If anything, the media is underestimating the depth of the decline.
    Even the property industry's own highly suspect figures have been forced to concede a slippage in house prices. Suspect figures? Yes, they totally fail to reflect what is going on out there. Because nothing is going on out there.
    The figures are a fiction. The highest profile edition, the Permanent TSB/ESRI's little version, is a cosy concoction.
    Last week I was staggered. I had always blindly believed that the Permanent TSB/ESRI index traced a well researched pattern of movements in house prices.
    It does nothing of the sort, It is a virtual index, a ragbag of flawed guesses.
    This supposedly definitive house-price index, does not include a single house transaction!
    It is a mix of valuations, not prices. It is the industry insiders' estimates of the value, never the price, of various houses. The numbers inserted into the index are set long before the sale of a house. The gurus guess.
    The valuations are done by agents of the Permanent TSB, on houses valued exclusively for mortgages. All prices are predictions. They are pre-sale or pre-auction.
    No doubt, in the case of the Permanent TSB, the valuers are sympathetic to a high valuation. That way, the Permanent TSB lends more money. What an industry.

    Anecdotal evidence from the paper of record
    The best offer we've got is 25% below asking price
    We put our Dublin house on the market in May (a terrible time but we are relocating for work reasons and had to). There was no interest initially but this month three viewings yielded two offers. The problem is that one was 30 per cent below asking price, the other 25 per cent. The estate agent said he would work on the people who offered the most to bring them up to asking price but she's had no luck with them so far. We are panicking because we can't afford to take such a hit.

    Net Zero means we are paying for the destruction of our economy and society in pursuit of an unachievable and pointless policy.



  • Registered Users Posts: 3,470 ✭✭✭DonJose


    Funny that nobody mentioned the following. So much for abolishing stamp duty for first time buyers.


    Monthly sales of secondhand houses down by 50 per cent on last year

    "Figures released by the Department of Finance reveal that the monthly sale of secondhand houses has slumped by more than 50 per cent this year. Last January, 5,375 secondhand houses were sold, bringing in €127m in stamp duty to the Department of Finance.


    But by October house sales had fallen to a low of just 2,662 sales and a 50 per cent cut in revenue to €68.5m.

    Speaking on the issue, Fine Gael TD Richard Bruton noted that these figures "collapsed the government's claim that we were experiencing a soft landing"."
    http://www.independent.ie/national-news/monthly-sales-of-secondhand-houses-down-by-50-per-cent-on-last-year-1230009.html


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 13,992 ✭✭✭✭gurramok


    DonJose wrote: »
    Funny that nobody mentioned the following. So much for abolishing stamp duty for first time buyers.


    Monthly sales of secondhand houses down by 50 per cent on last year

    Never highlight bad news, keep it under the carpet, thats how certain sections of the media who rely on lucrative property advertsing operate.

    To newestUser and others that don't know...house price transactions are not publicly available in this country, it must be the only developed country in the world thats like that.

    One asks why!


  • Registered Users Posts: 4,748 ✭✭✭Do-more


    Interesting article from ft.com.

    invest4deepvalue.com



  • Closed Accounts Posts: 79 ✭✭domania


    Good news.

    Announced today on the News at One that all Banks are restricting 100% mortgages to first time buyers. Only thoses earning more than 75000 / 80000 per annnum (depending on the bank) or professionals like Dentists, Doctors etc can apply for them.

    Squeeze!!!!!!!!!!!

    This can only help the house prices to fall further and quicker.


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 256 ✭✭blast05


    that report is a load of tosh and not reliable at all dogs on the street know the percentage is much higher than that. indeed there have been estate agents quoting at least 15%

    Fair enough that the fall is 15% in say places like west Dublin etc (perhaps even more there) but the figure is much less in other places; for example asking prices have gone up in the estate i live in in a midlands town in the last 6 months.
    This can only help the house prices to fall further and quicker.

    Don't be so sure. What will ultimately dictate prices over the next 2 to 3 years is supply and demand (interest rates will continue to remain favourably low). Can anyone tell me of 1 single housing development that has started in the last 3-6 months, i.e.: a green field site. I know a lot of people in construction and have a few family members involved and they aren't aware of any. The only house construction that is ongoing is on those developments that are being completed and even these are being scaled back and put on the long finger. Take the huge development ongoing in Adamstown - 12 brickies who were long term employees of the builder Castlethorn were laid off about 6 weeks ago - all Irish, none eastern European. Brickies are at the first stage of contruction so there will be more and more layoffs of guys further down the chain. This is the common theme accross the country. The Construction Industry Federation predicted last week that construction could drop to 30,000 units next year or possibly even lower. This would be a complete collapse from 90,000 last year and could throw the country into recession although i doubt it as the era of the house extension is in the process of kicking off thereby taking up the slack of construction workers.

    So the nett effect of all this? While the service industry continues to grow resulting in more and more eastern Europeans (90,000 PPS numbers in Q2 and Q3 of this year) and with on average 60,000 young people looking for their own pad (rented or otherwise) per year then demand will remain very strong but construction rates will have collapsed leading to increasing rents and recovering prices.
    I would expect prices to keep dropping by up to another 10% until about the middle of next year when a rebound will begin


  • Registered Users Posts: 5,297 ✭✭✭ionapaul


    If the construction industry suffers as you suspect, so will the service sector. The Eastern Europeans will leave if this happen. Rents will drop as even more homes become empty after the tenants leave - we already have a huge number of empty homes!
    Fair play to whomever in your housing estate that manages to turn a higher asking price into a higher selling price than was achieved this time last year - would be a miracle for any home in the midlands I reckon!


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,425 ✭✭✭indiewindy


    blast05 wrote: »
    Fair enough that the fall is 15% in say places like west Dublin etc (perhaps even more there) but the figure is much less in other places; for example asking prices have gone up in the estate i live in in a midlands town in the last 6 months.



    Don't be so sure. What will ultimately dictate prices over the next 2 to 3 years is supply and demand (interest rates will continue to remain favourably low). Can anyone tell me of 1 single housing development that has started in the last 3-6 months, i.e.: a green field site. I know a lot of people in construction and have a few family members involved and they aren't aware of any. The only house construction that is ongoing is on those developments that are being completed and even these are being scaled back and put on the long finger. Take the huge development ongoing in Adamstown - 12 brickies who were long term employees of the builder Castlethorn were laid off about 6 weeks ago - all Irish, none eastern European. Brickies are at the first stage of contruction so there will be more and more layoffs of guys further down the chain. This is the common theme accross the country. The Construction Industry Federation predicted last week that construction could drop to 30,000 units next year or possibly even lower. This would be a complete collapse from 90,000 last year and could throw the country into recession although i doubt it as the era of the house extension is in the process of kicking off thereby taking up the slack of construction workers.

    So the nett effect of all this? While the service industry continues to grow resulting in more and more eastern Europeans (90,000 PPS numbers in Q2 and Q3 of this year) and with on average 60,000 young people looking for their own pad (rented or otherwise) per year then demand will remain very strong but construction rates will have collapsed leading to increasing rents and recovering prices.
    I would expect prices to keep dropping by up to another 10% until about the middle of next year when a rebound will begin

    As an earlier poster wrote, the removal of 100% mortgages is going to automatically reduce buying power resulting in less demand, all signs are that banks have to be much more cautious lending, maybe asking prices are up where you live but selling prices are all that matter. The only reliable property market survey will be the 2007 Dept of Environmentt housing report, but that wont be out until next summer, it will make fro very interesting reading.


  • Moderators, Entertainment Moderators Posts: 12,916 Mod ✭✭✭✭iguana


    blast05 wrote: »
    So the nett effect of all this? While the service industry continues to grow resulting in more and more eastern Europeans (90,000 PPS numbers in Q2 and Q3 of this year) and with on average 60,000 young people looking for their own pad (rented or otherwise) per year then demand will remain very strong but construction rates will have collapsed leading to increasing rents and recovering prices.
    I would expect prices to keep dropping by up to another 10% until about the middle of next year when a rebound will begin

    There are already a phenomenal amount of empty properties in Ireland. Some figures suggest as many as 1 in 6 residential properties are currently empty. Your figures also assume that nobody who currently lives alone will die or need permanent care in the upcoming 18 months.


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,594 ✭✭✭Pa ElGrande


    blast05 wrote: »
    Fair enough that the fall is 15% in say places like west Dublin etc (perhaps even more there) but the figure is much less in other places; for example asking prices have gone up in the estate i live in in a midlands town in the last 6 months.
    Put some figures on this how much did they rise over 2006 figures, is it 1%, 5%, 10%? Are any of these section 23 tax shelters? Were extra incentives (e.g. furnishings, free cars, mortgage paid for a year) included that were not available in previous years? There must be a reason the prices rose when everywhere else has been falling.
    blast05 wrote: »
    Don't be so sure. What will ultimately dictate prices over the next 2 to 3 years is supply and demand (interest rates will continue to remain favourably low).
    If only it were that simple, you are repeating the lines trotted out by certain economists with a vested interest in the property market and repeated ad nauseum by the media for the unthinking sheeple to feast upon. We have now arrived at a juncture where several challenges combine to lead us into the worst recession we will ever experience in our lifetime.
    • Global oil production has peaked and can no longer satisfy increasing global demand for this energy.
    • Food production has decreased over the past few years due to a combination of adverse weather conditions and diversion to bio-fuels. At the same time global growth has meant demand for food has increased and combined with rising energy prices is driving food inflation (agflation)
    • Rising global demand especially in Asia (China and India) has also pushed up the cost of raw materials such as steel and copper. The need for infrastructure overhaul in countries like the USA and Ireland will also continue to drive demand for commodities.
    • China is overproducing goods and has its own internal growth problems to deal with such as fuel shortages, labour strikes and a bubble in the their stock market.
    • The biggest credit bubble in global history has just burst and the losses to the banking sector are mounting, we are talking hundreds of billions of dollars, nothing on this scale has happened before.
    • The Americans are running a military empire they can no longer afford, and their government is running huge deficits, this matters because the post world war II baby boomer generation is about to start retiring en-masse and will be drawing on their savings, their social security and medicare funds are simply IOU's. As a result the American government and banking sector has decided it will inflate its way out of debt, this is why the dollar will continue to fall in value.
    • Even though the Eurozone money supply is inflating (M3) at a greater rate currently than the US dollar, its value is rising as the oil producing nations switch out of the dollar into a perceived safe haven. This may keep interest rates down in Eurozone for the short term.
    • The trigger event for the collapse of the credit bubble is the Japanese Yen carry trade unwinding due to the depreciation of the dollar and Chinese government action to drive the Yen value higher by building their reserves. China's intention is to be the dominant political force in Asia.

    What's all this got to do with the housing bust you ask?

    The reason for the boom was the availability of cheap and easy credit supplied on the global markets. That credit came from the savings of mainland Europeans, excess income of the oil producing nations and savings of the Asian countries, which in turn was driven by money supply expansion and the creative use of derivatives by hedge funds backed by the banking sector. Had the credit bubble not burst we would be well on our way down the sub-prime route that the Americans took several years earlier, you have only to look at the newspaper articles from January of this year to read about the partnerships mainstream Irish banks made with sub-prime lenders.

    That cheap money is gone and the Irish lenders cannot securitise their mortgages in the current market conditions, in fact the banking system is in such bad state that the ECB has had to continue to pump billions of Euro into the banking system to keep it stable.
    Several banks have already folded and more will follow (including one or more Irish banks) Why do you think investors are dumping and shorting Irish banking stocks? They know the sector is too exposed to construction and housing for its earnings and there is no possibility of growth in the next few years. Their money can earn better returns elsewhere.

    The housing crash we are experiencing is a symptom of the confluence of several major global events, for the next few years in Ireland, house prices will be determined by savings and availability of credit. The banks are now caught in a negative feedback loop, they can't raise cheap credit, so have to tighten lending standards, so the amount they lend falls, forcing down prices further, making them less inclined to lend against the value of a declining asset.
    Banks must also increase their bad debt provisioning which further reduces their capital, further due primarily to monetary inflation, investing in commodities such as gold and oil offers a better return than savings in a bank, they must improve their rates in order to attract deposits, the flip side of this means they will not pass interest rate cuts on to borrowers and will eventually be forced to raise interest rates or else go bankrupt.

    The other structural problems in the Irish economy vis the construction sector have been covered extensively on this thread.

    Irish House Market: Treading the spectrum between blind faith and calamity howling
    By Michael Hennigan, Apr 16, 2007

    Irish Economy 2006 and Future of the Celtic Tiger: Putting a brass knocker on a barn door!
    By Michael Hennigan, Aug 14, 2006

    The free lunch has yet to be invented - the tipping point for the Irish economy
    By Michael Hennigan, Jun 24, 2006

    Ireland's Celtic Tiger 2005: Built to last or on a foundation of quicksand?
    By Michael Hennigan, Dec 6, 2005
    blast05 wrote: »
    Can anyone tell me of 1 single housing development that has started in the last 3-6 months, i.e.: a green field site.
    Yes, my brother started working in one here in Dublin in the past month. But your point is correct all the other sites I know are finishing existing contracts or cladding remaining buildings and not breaking new ground.
    blast05 wrote: »
    So the nett effect of all this? While the service industry continues to grow resulting in more and more eastern Europeans (90,000 PPS numbers in Q2 and Q3 of this year) and with on average 60,000 young people looking for their own pad (rented or otherwise) per year then demand will remain very strong but construction rates will have collapsed leading to increasing rents and recovering prices.
    The migration pattern will reverse as major new infrastructural projects in Eastern Europe and migration of manufacturing and assembly to cheaper locations continue. Also the wages paid in most of these service jobs only support limited rent rises (i.e. you cannot borrow money from banks to pay rent). With a excess supply of labour especially after the collapse of the construction sector then wages will be driven down, and so will rents.
    blast05 wrote: »
    I would expect prices to keep dropping by up to another 10% until about the middle of next year when a rebound will begin
    There will be no rebound until the excesses of the boom have been worked off , I will not be surprised to see any major pickup in prices until the echo boom of the Popes Childrens' Children.

    Net Zero means we are paying for the destruction of our economy and society in pursuit of an unachievable and pointless policy.



  • Closed Accounts Posts: 256 ✭✭blast05


    Your figures also assume that nobody who currently lives alone will die or need permanent care in the upcoming 18 months.

    No, i just didn't feel the need to state the obvious. Where we will have 60,000 new people leaving the comfort of the home nest, there wil be about 30-35,000 deaths (7.9 deaths per 1,000 expected in 2007) - nett increase of ~30,000 so even if there was a nett drop of 25,000 eastern europeans in the country next year then there would nonetheless be a status quo population wise and thus property demand wise. However, suggesting an exodus of eastern europeans just simply does not tie in with any official predictions. Typical estimates are for a slowdown in the numbers arriving here but a minimum increase of ~40,000 nonetheless which gives us a nett increase of ~70,000 people and this does not take into account migration from other regions.
    In addition, i don't buy into the theory that the service sector would take a nose dive if house construction slowed. We are already seeing that despite house construction having slowed from 90,000 per year to current annualised figures at the moment of less than 60,000 that there is more or less a status quo in the number involved in construction (albeit there a few thousand less from around late summer) as the slack is being taken up by public infrastructure projects, commercial development, house extensions, etc. Even if the numbers involved in construction were to drop, i know from many places that it is not the eastern european guys that are being let go first. They are willing to do the work for a lower rate and it is the Irish guys that are being forced to look for work in other lines of industry and carry on using their trade to do nixers in the evenings and at weekends.

    I still stand over the downward spiral in property prices to continue until next May / June after which i would expect it to stabilise and start to turn around slowly.


  • Registered Users Posts: 250 ✭✭Tom123


    blast05 wrote: »
    ypical estimates are for a slowdown in the numbers arriving here but a minimum increase of ~40,000 nonetheless which gives us a nett increase of ~70,000 people and this does not take into account migration from other regions.
    I

    But we would only need about 30,000 properties to house 70,000 people but next year we still expect to build 50,000


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 13,992 ✭✭✭✭gurramok


    blast05, where will the 70,000 who are now 30,000 couples(as it takes 2 people to buy an apt on average) get the money from to buy an apt/house in the magical turn around next May/June(nevermind a credit squeeze)?

    66% of the workforce earn under 34kpa, do you expect them all to win the lotto by then? :D


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 256 ✭✭blast05


    Oh crap, i'm just after posting a very lengthy reply on this thread and managed to wipe it ... too late to go re-hashing .... edit: have put some of it back up
    But we would only need about 30,000 properties to house 70,000 people but next year we still expect to build 50,000

    CIF predicts 30,000 houses and i feel even thats optimistic given that i don't know of even a single green field site where a housing development has started in the last 6 months, as i mentioned before.
    blast05, where will the 70,000 who are now 30,000 couples(as it takes 2 people to buy an apt on average) get the money from to buy an apt/house in the magical turn around next May/June(nevermind a credit squeeze)?

    Where have they been getting it up to now ? Most young professional couples out of college would be on say 70K between them. A multiple of 4 times their income which would still be easily available in the current climate plus a few savings gives them 300K to but an apartment or even a 3 bed semi in west Dublin.
    Look, we all know FF. If by next summer the property market hasn't started moving again then they will do something. It will be dressed as "revenue from property transactions has dropped dramatically so we are halfing stamp duty to stimulate activity with the expectation that despite the reduction, there will be a nett increase in revenue to the government." ... and this would be true

    Even if FF do nothing, well it almost doesn't matter cos about 30-40 big builders control housing construction in this country, to a degree not seen in any other country in the developed world imho. These guys are beginning to sit back, are dropping tools and will not bother starting again until such time as most of the excess stock has been used and demand begins to outstrip supply again, be that 3 years, 5 years or whatever although i feel it will take much less time.

    Seperately, people are taking about a spike in the availability of properties in the rental sector - maybe so but when i was renting a property in Ratoath in Meath about a month ago, i had over a dozen phone calls within a week of people willing to take it off my hands there and then - 16.5% rent increase (for the record the fact that i rent a property or 2 does not colour my views on the whole situation as difficult as that may seem to believe as i will be holding the same ones in 15 to 20 years time so i don't really care about short to medium terms trends).


    Ara look it, at the end of the day we're all playing guesswork here !!!!


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 6,718 ✭✭✭SkepticOne


    blast05 wrote: »
    CIF predicts 30,000 houses and i feel even thats optimistic given that i don't know of even a single green field site where a housing development has started in the last 6 months, as i mentioned before.
    I think an important question here is whether builders have stopped building to maintain prices or whether they've stopped because people have simply stopped buying their output.

    I've heard it on the radio and elsewhere that because builders have reacted quickly to reduced demand that therefore this will limit price drops. Others have argued (correctly imo) that a massive slow down in building will have knock-on effects on employment and the economy, but the thing that needs to be questioned is why it is in the builders' interest to maintain high prices in the first place.

    The business of house building is to produce houses at a profit. No building = no profit. The only reason I can think of for builders to keep prices artificially high is so that they can get rid of their own portfolio of investment properties. But once they have shifted these it is not in their interest to maintain high prices indefinitely.

    When houses were a fraction of the price they are now there was building going on. In other countries today where houses are a fraction of the price they are in Ireland they are still building houses. Your average 3-bed semi in Dublin does not need to be 400,000 euros for it to make sense to build houses.

    Builders, imo, will start getting back into the market long before prices come back to their peak and this will keep prices down. They will come back as soon as there's a profit to be made. Obviously they won't be producing 90,000 a year or anything like that since there won't be the spectulators buying up everything. We'll get back to a sustainable rate of building at sustainable prices.


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