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Number of mortgages in arrears hits new peak of 14pc

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    #32
    Monty Burnz
    Closed Accounts Posts: 12,455 ✭✭✭✭Monty Burnz


    Mr. Loverman wrote: »
    Actually I would argue laziness was a factor for some people.

    Most of the people I know who bought during the bubble did little to no research as to whether they are making a good or bad decision. They only sought advice from the bank and family members. I know you could argue they didn't realise the advice they were getting was false or poor, but even askaboutmoney would link to thepropertypin every now and then, so decent advice was quite easily available.

    I remember being at a party maybe five years ago and a girl who works in the bank telling everyone "now is the time to buy" and I was the only person there asking "why is now the time to buy?" (At that stage I was firmly in the "Ireland is ****ed" camp). She didn't have an answer to my question. I appeared to be the only one who thought this was funny.
    Well yes, this is totally true. The biggest financial decision you will ever make, and the only question many (most?) people asked was in the bank - 'what's the most I can borrow?'. Because reading about this stuff is 'boring'. A few hours reading could have saved them hundreds of thousands of euros. Astonishing stuff.


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    #33
    Mr. Loverman
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,001 ✭✭✭Mr. Loverman


    Monty Burnz wrote: »
    Well yes, this is totally true. The biggest financial decision you will ever make, and the only question many (most?) people asked was in the bank - 'what's the most I can borrow?'. Because reading about this stuff is 'boring'. A few hours reading could have saved them hundreds of thousands of euros. Astonishing stuff.

    Also interesting is how difficult it is for people to accept responsibility for their actions. It has led me to read lots of psychology, e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases


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    #34
    MysticalRain
    Registered Users Posts: 1,428 ✭✭✭MysticalRain


    Mr. Loverman wrote: »
    Actually I would argue laziness was a factor for some people.

    Most of the people I know who bought during the bubble did little to no research as to whether they are making a good or bad decision. They only sought advice from the bank and family members. I know you could argue they didn't realise the advice they were getting was false or poor, but even askaboutmoney would link to thepropertypin every now and then, so decent advice was quite easily available.

    I remember being at a party maybe five years ago and a girl who works in the bank telling everyone "now is the time to buy" and I was the only person there asking "why is now the time to buy?" (At that stage I was firmly in the "Ireland is ****ed" camp). She didn't have an answer to my question. I appeared to be the only one who thought this was funny.

    Things haven't changed much since the downturn, judging by what I hear from a family member of mine who works as a solicitor doing conveyancing these days. Apparently she finds it quite difficult to convince here clients to hire an structural engineer to evaluate a property before buying it. This despite all the horror stories of pyrite, houses built on flood plains, and generally shoddy Celtic Tiger era building work.

    These are of course the same kinds of people who will try to sue their own solicitor at the drop of a hat if anything goes wrong with the purchase. You would think that people would put a bit more thought into it before making the biggest financial transaction of their entire lifetime.


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