The First Time Buyer Syndrome.

AlekSmart

The other benefit of the lack of speculative stuff on the continent is a much lower level of amateur landlords. Investment companies own a lot of apartment blocks that are viewed as a long-term investment and they recognise the benefit of encouraging long-term renters. Here we have lots of individuals who speculated, bought a 2nd property to rent out and don't do a proper job as a landlord (not necessarily intentionally).

Taconnol might just be on-the-money here and this explanation comes closest to the reasoning I`m starting to apply to the topic.

Is it back to a form of inbuilt "cute hoorism" which I suppose may be an integral part of our national physche and which tends to make us somewhat ill suited to managing stuff of our own ?

What strikes me as interesting and totally absent from the Irish situation is the absense of any encouragement of a stable,protected long-term rental situation which could act as a vehicle to stabilize our currently volatile property scene.

It`s interesting to see how this thread wandered off into a discource on "Dead Money" with few prepared to address the non-financial elements of Long-Term property rental in a Social sense.

I`m finding it hugely interesting to read at any rate

Duckjob

AlekSmart wrote: »

It`s interesting to see how this thread wandered off into a discource on "Dead Money" with few prepared to address the non-financial elements of Long-Term property rental in a Social sense.

I don't think you'll get much argument regarding the social preferability to owning your home rather than renting it, particularly where families are concerned.

Personally, it's the owning at any price mentality that is ingrained in so many people that I would take issue with.

Ironically, the perception of security of tenure achieved by buying is just that. For many people who overstretched themselves to buy in 2007 it's a shattered one.

Macha

Duckjob wrote: »

I don't think you'll get much argument regarding the social preferability to owning your home rather than renting it, particularly where families are concerned.

If you're talking about many people's snobby attitude towards renting, you're right. Discussions of renting among some groups are often met with the same awkward sideways glance as taking public transport or other such signs of "not having made it".

As for the social benefits of housing, there was a very interesting Economist article last week showing that these benefits (people more active in the community etc) are often overstated and the drawbacks rarely publicized. High levels of home ownership can lead to greater levels of nimbyism, ranging from constant opposition to infrastucture projects of regional/national importance to simple racism or discrimination against the poorer classes.

Aleksmart, what you're really starting to get into is government policy towards house ownership and why it was pushed so much by FF over the last 12 years. Unfortunately, it's pretty clear that the Galway Tent had more influence on FF's housing policy than any other consideration.

I don't know if it's so much a national trait, but perhaps more to do with the fact that Ireland's population is just so small. Maybe a mix of the two with a dash of "ah sure it'll be grand".

Duckjob

taconnol wrote: »

If you're talking about many people's snobby attitude towards renting, you're right. Discussions of renting among some groups are often met with the same awkward sideways glance as taking public transport or other such signs of "not having made it".

Actually, I was talking more about the freedom associated with owning your own home, being able to decorate it the way you want, keep pets etc.

I agree with you though about the snobby attitude.

I've experienced the social situations you describe, but personally I couldn't give two hats of sh*te whether those people think I've "made it" or not.

AARRRGH

asdasd wrote: »

So to sum up.

Renting can be dead money.

But not now. And not during the boom.

I actually don't think renting is ever dead money. I think gurramok's explanation is a good one: is staying in a hotel dead money? No, it's not, as you are paying for a service. Renting is the exact same.

Rather than debating whether or not it makes sense to rent, I think people should be debating whether or not it makes sense to buy in a bubble or a falling market...

JJJJNR

Ok so when is a good time to buy, to have stability in your life after your finished backpacking.. According to the "charts" we could be looking at renting for the next 25 years before things start to go up again, but then a boom is a bad time to buy also.

No one knows the future, the 100k off house's might be the soft landing, there are bursts of hope in the stock markets, albeit to early to say if these are going to be sustained.

If there was some sort of scheme like in old communist russia where you can rent a decent council apartment/house for your life then I'd be happy but unfortunately there's nothing like this in free Ireland.

Macha

JJJJNR wrote: »

If there was some sort of scheme like in old communist russia where you can rent a decent council apartment/house for your life then I'd be happy but unfortunately there's nothing like this in free Ireland.

You don't have to go that far to find decent housing provided by the state. Sweden offers excellent, high quality accommodation for very low rent with additional cost-saving features such as district heating installed. There's no shame in saying you live in council housing in Sweden - the state is just another landlord, albeit a responsible, long-term one.

In the 1960s, the Irish state provided over 30% of all residential housing. Now, it's closer to 7%. Why? They also chose to effectively sell off their housing stock at ridiculously low prices in the form of affordable housing (one of the stupidest, most wasteful scheme ever IMO).

ionix5891

JJJJNR wrote: »

Ok so when is a good time to buy

not until we are out of this depression (yes Ireland is in a depression) and then some more

so far theres no sign of that here

the rest of the world will recover in next couple of years as for us who knows

Small Change

taconnol wrote: »

In the 1960s, the Irish state provided over 30% of all residential housing. Now, it's closer to 7%. Why? They also chose to effectively sell off their housing stock at ridiculously low prices in the form of affordable housing (one of the stupidest, most wasteful scheme ever IMO).

Their housing stock is about to be replenished in the near future I think

AARRRGH

JJJJNR wrote: »

Ok so when is a good time to buy, to have stability in your life after your finished backpacking.. According to the "charts" we could be looking at renting for the next 25 years before things start to go up again, but then a boom is a bad time to buy also.

We have just come out of an insane property bubble, so it doesn't make sense to buy now.

You don't have to wait until when we've hit the bottom, or prices start rising again. Basically, you just have to wait until prices are no longer obscene.

That will probably mean in 18 - 24 months, or something like that.

JJJJNR

AARRRGH wrote: »

We have just come out of an insane property bubble, so it doesn't make sense to buy now.

You don't have to wait until when we've hit the bottom, or prices start rising again. Basically, you just have to wait until prices are no longer obscene.

That will probably mean in 18 - 24 months, or something like that.

I heard that Holland had a similar property crash in the early 90's. There was huge reform in housing there, with "no shame" council apartments similar to those in Sweden. Friend of mine lives in Amsterdam and has his own apartment through a similar scheme.

A friend of mine is seriously thinking of putting a deposit down on an apartment some where in Dublin, I sent him this article.

And he was puffing at the thoughts of being even sent a link to anything council related...

I dont really know what the difference is between our "affordable" houses and whats on offer in the likes of Holland and Sweden.