It's 2005 again.. in Chapelizod..!

W123-80's

Evening all,

Figured I had to share this tale...
Myself and the queen are currently renting in Chapelizod, happy out, lovely area.

Noticed the development (linked below) a couple of times whilst out running. Unfinished, typical Celtic tiger effort.
Anyway, this week they appeared on daft/myhome as recievership sales.

We shot down for a look out of curiosity this morning.
Wow wee..!
Hard to believe, cars everywhere, people everywhere, couples like ourselves in particular. All very normal I thought until I spoke with an autioneer... all 2 beds were sold that morning. With strong interest in the 1 beds.

Couple of things struck me as I walked away;

1. How can the auctioneer say places are sold - surely they are under offer?
2. Are these places really that well priced?? (Possibly for investors I suppose)
3. There is alot of people out there ready to buy.
4. Is the market in Dublin on the verge of a little spike as soon as prices hit a certain level?
5. Are Irish people unique in their obsession??
6. Today was like 2002-06 all over agian, it was a little unsettling to be honest.
7. Surely we are not that desperate to own bricks and morter that we will jump at the first floozy to drop her price...(so to speak...!)

Anyway, good luck to anyone who purchased.

http://www.myhome.ie/residential/brochure/chapelhill-chapelizod-dublin-20/2184684 (2 beds)

http://www.myhome.ie/residential/brochure/chapelhill-chapelizod-dublin-20/2184662 (1 beds)

Having re-read that, I realised I haven't given much opinion.
The apartments were in various states of finish, from show house to concrete floors. Neither 1 or 2 beds were anyway impressive in terms of layout or design. I don't think they are worth the asking price, which is why I was amazed that all the 2 beds sold this morning.

L1011

People are panicking about "losing out" on mortgage interest relief. Which isn't really worth a huge amount on a 105k (likely 90k max mortgage). Adding to that, the banks have increased lending slightly. This will fizzle out in January and the prices will probably drop by more than the interest relief saves.

Yes, the Irish seem unique in their utter obsession with owning a tiny plot of land - or no land at all in the case of an apartment. The UK comes close, but its still not the same; the rest of the world doesn't have the same primal urge to buy bricks.

As goes "sold" - whoever is selling them presumably has a price they would automatically accept at, so they would be 'sold' as such.

I'm buying at the moment but only because I can afford it, can afford even fairly significant loss of value, its likely to stay cheaper than renting even with a fairly painful property tax, and I got an executor sale. Wouldn't really recommend it as a good time to buy.

StillWaters

I think those apartments are well priced for the location and finish. I can see why they sold.

StillWaters

MYOB wrote: »

Yes, the Irish seem unique in their utter obsession with owning a tiny plot of land - or no land at all in the case of an apartment. The UK comes close, but its still not the same; the rest of the world doesn't have the same primal urge to buy bricks.

That's not true, a poster on this forum put up some really interesting stats which debunked this. I'll try to find them. It basically showed Ireland being average in home ownership, and lower than Germany iifc. I was very surprised as we are fed this obsession myth which isn't backed up by data.

Bigcheeze

StillWaters wrote: »

I think those apartments are well priced for the location and finish. I can see why they sold.

Also at 1,000 sq ft, the 2 beds are as big as most of the 3 bed semis built in the last 20 years .

Bigcheeze

StillWaters wrote: »

That's not true, a poster on this forum put up some really interesting stats which debunked this. I'll try to find them. It basically showed Ireland being average in home ownership, and lower than Germany iifc. I was very surprised as we are fed this obsession myth which isn't backed up by data.

Correct. Ownership here is 75% and falling. It's bang on the European average.

murphaph

1 beds offer rather good yields to investors at the moment in Dublin. Much better than during the boom. The clever investors got out while it was red hot and are buying back in now for buttons (relatively). Chapelizod is a nice area (river, park, close to city). Interesting story however, cheers OP.

murphaph

StillWaters wrote: »

That's not true, a poster on this forum put up some really interesting stats which debunked this. I'll try to find them. It basically showed Ireland being average in home ownership, and lower than Germany iifc. I was very surprised as we are fed this obsession myth which isn't backed up by data.

Deffo not lower than Germany. Ireland is around 80% home ownership. Germany is around 50%, but increasing year on year.

I think the likes of Austria have pretty high ownership rates, but the difference seems to be not ownership at any price. They'll rent if it is cheaper.

mikemac1

The archictect was having a laugh when he designed that block, it looks horrible

Way offtopic but a shame there are no roof gardens, lots of places have those nowadays, a nice touch.




The flats look very well inside

+1 for Chapelizod being a lovely area and it's popular with renters.

Any owners will need a car and there is one Spar shop, three pubs, a pharmacy and not much else in the village.

The hill to Ballyfermot is a killer for cyclists and walkers
So steep

NIMAN

Jez, how ugly are they?

Looks like something I have stayed in on the Canary Islands on self catering holidays.

W123-80's

murphaph wrote: »

1 beds offer rather good yields to investors at the moment in Dublin. Much better than during the boom. The clever investors got out while it was red hot and are buying back in now for buttons (relatively). Chapelizod is a nice area (river, park, close to city). Interesting story however, cheers OP.

I'd agree with this. Having rented a couple of 1 beds over the years, the location of these certainly trumps alot of others.
As I mentioned earlier, it's a shame the developer didn't put any thought into the actual design though. Same old kitchen/living combo, with no storage aside from a small hall press.

fiacha

FYI.

Just over the wall into the Phoenix park. It's a valley with both sides of it looking straight into the top floors of those appartments.

That valley is used by gentlemen seeking other gentlemen, and the odd homeless camp. Take a walk into the woods there, and you'll see all the rubbish associated with those activities along the wall beside the appartments.

Should make for interesting viewing of a summers evening !

magicbastarder

it may be 2005 in terms of the interest shown, but what year in terms of price?

W123-80's

magicbastarder wrote: »

it may be 2005 in terms of the interest shown, but what year in terms of price?

Not 2005 in fairness.!

The showhome went for €200k, which in my opinion, is overpriced. Having said that, if the market is selling at that price, my opinion is not really relevant.

Callan57

Look lovely inside but the outside is downright ugly & all those steps

Bigcheeze

murphaph wrote: »

Deffo not lower than Germany. Ireland is around 80% home ownership. Germany is around 50%, but increasing year on year.

I think the likes of Austria have pretty high ownership rates, but the difference seems to be not ownership at any price. They'll rent if it is cheaper.

The actual data is on Page 6 of this report:

http://www.savills.co.uk/promotions/research.aspx?document=http://pdf.euro.savills.co.uk/residential-property-focus-uk/residential-property-focus-q3-2012.pdf?response=no

Germany is 56%. Ireland is 74%. EU average is 74%. Kind of debunks the myth that Ireland is somehow obsessed with owning property at any cost.

Austria and Germany are really the only two that are significantly lower than Ireland but at the moment in Ireland it seems to be popular to benchmark every aspect of life against Germany as some model of perfection.

L1011

What's the average age of first purchase across the EU? What's the most common type first purchased?

There is definitely no other country where its common for 20-somethings to mortgage themselves to the hilt to buy a shoebox.

NIMAN

fiacha wrote: »

FYI.


That valley is used by gentlemen seeking other gentlemen, and the odd homeless camp. Take a walk into the woods there, and you'll see all the rubbish associated with those activities along the wall beside the appartments.

Should make for interesting viewing of a summers evening !

What sort of rubbish do you see with this activity?:D

Diddler1977

Drive by these apts every day. I love the look of them from the outside. But I think you could have trouble getting in and out every day. It is a busy hill.

mgn

All sold except 1 1bed apartment today at 3pm

theteal

I know them, they're just on the left as you get to the bottom of the hill. I used to pass them a lot when driving to the missus's parents in Castleknock. They kind of intrigued me as the entrance was fenced off for years, I came to the conclusion that it had to be the closest ghost estate to Dublin city centre. They're not in a great location, still a decent 10 minute walk to nearest shop/pub and the traffic at rush hour can be bad getting to there from both sides. Generally I'd be a huge fan of Chapelizod but the benefit of the village-y feel is kind of wasted when you're isolated at the furthest extremity of the village

murphaph

Bigcheeze wrote: »

Germany is 56%. Ireland is 74%. EU average is 74%. Kind of debunks the myth that Ireland is somehow obsessed with owning property at any cost.

It doesn't debunk anything of the sort. It just states home ownership rates are similar with some other EU countries. Last I heard, Ireland's property collapse was one of, if not the worst in world history. Our continental cousins may in parts have similar ownership rates, but they haven't been paying 10x annual salaries for their properties, which are now worth just 40-50% of what they paid. The Germans love the idea of owning their own home too btw, they just won't pay whatever the asking price is for it if it makes no financial sense to do so.

I'd say Ireland could be fairly compared to Hong Kong or Japan where people also bought at almost any price.

riclad

i presume people buy there ,cos its close to city, in a good area.since those units are not very high ,small buildings , maintenance costs will be low.
IT seems a good price to me considering you have your own parking space.

Idbatterim

dont see anything wrong with those prices, mortgage would probably be half of what the rent it, also rents have increased over the past few months, at least in my area they have D.14. If people are looking to buy now and are looking at low price properties, i.e not end of world if prices dropped 10% as they would have spent that on rent anyway. Different if you talking 400-500k property though, as that could be 40-50k and rent would only likely be 1300-1500 per month on this value property...

syklops

I persoanlly think they look nice from the outside, but I dont like the steps. I think most people would start using the sliding door to drop the shopping in, and soon the frontdoor would become redundent.

The look of the houses remind me a lot of the houses on the way into Swords, is it Boroimhe? Nice sort of integrated and cosy houses but I always remember thinking any time I saw them was that there was zero hope of any kind of improvement or modification - short of removing the steps and putting in a lift. You see people with your standard, some would say boring, 3-bed semi, but you see lots of people adding conservatories and extensions, turning garages in to labs and extra storage.

gurramok

Why would a couple settling down buy a 2bed apt after all that has happened?(space issues primarily in Irish apts)

I suspect the buyers might have been cash rich investors. Comments like "strong interest in the 1 beds" supports that view. What was the age profile of the buyers OP? Keep an eye on the type of people who will move in, watch out for alot of renters.

magicbastarder

gurramok wrote: »

Why would a couple settling down buy a 2bed apt after all that has happened?(space issues primarily in Irish apts)

as pointed out above, the 2 beds are 1,000 sq ft. that's as big as a lot of 3 bed semis built in the country over the last decade.

ballooba

W123-80's wrote: »

All very normal I thought until I spoke with an autioneer... all 2 beds were sold that morning. With strong interest in the 1 beds.

Sold is a term that is used very loosely by real estate agents.

gurramok

magicbastarder wrote: »

as pointed out above, the 2 beds are 1,000 sq ft. that's as big as a lot of 3 bed semis built in the country over the last decade.

Are 2beds sufficient for a couple settling down? Ya know, they are going to have kids.

W123-80's

gurramok wrote: »

Why would a couple settling down buy a 2bed apt after all that has happened?(space issues primarily in Irish apts)

I suspect the buyers might have been cash rich investors. Comments like "strong interest in the 1 beds" supports that view. What was the age profile of the buyers OP? Keep an eye on the type of people who will move in, watch out for alot of renters.

Alot of the crowd seemed to be of a similar demographic to my GF & I. 20's/30's age group. Couples, single people etc.
Having said that there could have been a pile of investors there also and I wouldn't have picked them out.

From an investors perspective they are definately a good buy, particularily the 1 beds.

From a couple starting out perspective, in my opinion, you could spend your hard earned money better. No garden, no private space, no storage.

frfintanstack

MYOB wrote: »

People are panicking about "losing out" on mortgage interest relief. Which isn't really worth a huge amount on a 105k (likely 90k max mortgage). Adding to that, the banks have increased lending slightly. This will fizzle out in January and the prices will probably drop by more than the interest relief saves.

Yes, the Irish seem unique in their utter obsession with owning a tiny plot of land - or no land at all in the case of an apartment. The UK comes close, but its still not the same; the rest of the world doesn't have the same primal urge to buy bricks.

As goes "sold" - whoever is selling them presumably has a price they would automatically accept at, so they would be 'sold' as such.

I'm buying at the moment but only because I can afford it, can afford even fairly significant loss of value, its likely to stay cheaper than renting even with a fairly painful property tax, and I got an executor sale. Wouldn't really recommend it as a good time to buy.

Slags off Irish peoples obsession with property buying....while buying property himself.

Good work

You rationalised it well.

Im sure the people signing up for these apartments are saying something like:

MYOB wrote: »

I'm buying at the moment but only because I can afford it, can afford even fairly significant loss of value, its likely to stay cheaper than renting even with a fairly painful property tax.