Left Ireland for Australia, left keys in door

by the seaside

FamousSeamus wrote: »

Does anybody buy a house to live in for the rest of their life anymore or do people only care about, selling it on later for profit to get a bigger house to sell for profit, to get a bigger house to sell later for profit, etc etc!!

EDIT: I'm confused, was the OP genuine or troll? What happened there? (I think I missed something!!)

I think in many cases people can't afford to buy a house that they want to live in for the rest of their life.

FamousSeamus

by the seaside wrote: »

I think in many cases people can't afford to buy a house that they want to live in for the rest of their life.

Suppose, if your family grew bigger than expected then you'd need to buy a new house. I suppose I'm more of a "I'm not buying till I'm sure where I'm living" kinda guy!!

who_me

FamousSeamus wrote: »

Does anybody buy a house to live in for the rest of their life anymore or do people only care about, selling it on later for profit to get a bigger house to sell for profit, to get a bigger house to sell later for profit, etc etc!!

EDIT: I'm confused, was the OP genuine or troll? What happened there? (I think I missed something!!)

I did, though I bought at pretty much the peak (Aug, '07). So, while I'm pretty much at the worst point, negative equity wise, at least I bought a place I really liked and am happy to stay in. I really pity those who bought in places for the short-term, and could now be stuck there for many years.

If I had a penny for everyone who told me "it's important to get on the ladder, you can always move on", "You can't lose money on property", "Safe as houses", I'd nearly be able to buy myself out of it. It was like a nationwide frenzy, it wasn't just the banks.

skyfall2012

who_me wrote: »

I did, though I bought at pretty much the peak (Aug, '07). So, while I'm pretty much at the worst point, negative equity wise, at least I bought a place I really liked and am happy to stay in. I really pity those who bought in places for the short-term, and could now be stuck there for many years.

If I had a penny for everyone who told me "it's important to get on the ladder, you can always move on", "You can't lose money on property", "Safe as houses", I'd nearly be able to buy myself out of it. It was like a nationwide frenzy, it wasn't just the banks.

Property lost value in England in the 1980s and Japan and it Japan is still recovering from their property bust 20 years later. But it is not like buying shares where they can drop over night that is why it is considered a sure bet. People need to watch what is causing the price increases, a house should really cost 5 times the average industrial wage, of course you pay more depending on location etc. but at the very least, that is a good marker to start with.

skyfall2012

lima wrote: »

I'd just want it to stay around the same, because if they did start going up then everyone would turn into a d*ckhead like they did from 2002-2007 :rolleyes:

Who are the dickheads now, the ones sneering at the ones caught in the negative equity.

lima

skyfall2012 wrote: »

Who are the dickheads now, the ones sneering at the ones caught in the negative equity.

Not really, they are getting ripped off by having to pay for the debt write offs of said 2002-2007 dickheads. So they have a right to not like them and sneer at them.

narddog

FamousSeamus wrote: »

Does anybody buy a house to live in for the rest of their life anymore or do people only care about, selling it on later for profit to get a bigger house to sell for profit, to get a bigger house to sell later for profit, etc etc!!

EDIT: I'm confused, was the OP genuine or troll? What happened there? (I think I missed something!!)

You make a valid point, but sometimes life doesn't quite run in a straight line. A job opening, marriage breakup or a myriad of other life events can cause people to relocate. If you can afford a mortgage and don't plan/need to sell, it shouldn't matter the NE you have.

narddog

lima wrote: »

So they have a right to not like them and sneer at them.

Irish people can be real assholes sometimes. Go ahead, sneer all you want..

lima

narddog wrote: »

Irish people can be real assholes sometimes. Go ahead, sneer all you want..

Irish society has gone down the drain, we all pretend to be nice but secretly we all despise each other, especially if someone is getting more than you. you can feel the rage inside some people.

cookie1977

lima wrote: »

Irish society has gone down the drain, we all pretend to be nice but secretly we all despise each other, especially if someone is getting more than you. you can feel the rage inside some people.

Speak for yourself. If we're all so bad here why haven't you moved off to a better place and leave us all behind to our own failed lives and society?

Zamboni

I don't like sneering and I don't do it but there is a discussion (probably best in Humanities) to be had about the society that we create if we go down this path.

If we provide debt relief and forgiveness to a small number of people at the expense of others (and indeed people who do not yet exist);
We remove standards of accountability.
We remove equality.
We remove personal responsibility.

If that is the situation brought about by the democratically elected representatives in this country then so be it.
Personally I think it morally wrong to create a situation were risk and actions are devoid of consequence.

cookie1977

Zamboni wrote: »

I don't like sneering and I don't do it but there is a discussion (probably best in Humanities) to be had about the society that we create if we go down this path.

If we provide debt relief and forgiveness to a small number of people at the expense of others (and indeed people who do not yet exist);
We remove standards of accountability.
We remove equality.
We remove personal responsibility.

If that is the situation brought about by the democratically elected representatives in this country then so be it.
Personally I think it morally wrong to create a situation were risk and actions are devoid of consequence.

All of which can be portioned equally to both the banks and to those that took out the mortgages but you wouldn't necessarily know that from the market.

Zamboni

cookie1977 wrote: »

All of which can be portioned equally to both the banks and to those that took out the mortgages but you wouldn't necessarily know that from the market.

I don't give a damn about the apportionment of blame between "de banks" and the borrowers.
I do give a damn about the co-opting of the rest of society to alleviate their liabilities.

The Spider

Zamboni wrote: »

I don't give a damn about the apportionment of blame between "de banks" and the borrowers.
I do give a damn about the co-opting of the rest of society to alleviate their liabilities.

The borrowers are society, in fact even people who didn't buy have relatives who did, the part of society you're referring to are a tiny minority.

Zamboni

The Spider wrote: »

The borrowers are society, in fact even people who didn't buy have relatives who did, the part of society you're referring to are a tiny minority.

If a relative of mine makes a contract with a financial institution it should have zero bearing or consequence to me.

The Spider

Zamboni wrote: »

If a relative of mine makes a contract with a financial institution it should have zero bearing or consequence to me.

Fine, except most other people don't see things that way, no one wants to see their brother, sister, so, or daughter caught with unsustainable bills for the rest of their lives, if you asked them would they want them to have a writedown even if the taxpayer pays, the vast majority will have no problem with it.

The Corinthian

The Spider wrote: »

Fine, except most other people don't see things that way, no one wants to see their brother, sister, so, or daughter caught with unsustainable bills for the rest of their lives, if you asked them would they want them to have a writedown even if the taxpayer pays, the vast majority will have no problem with it.

No, but I doubt if anyone wants to cripple themselves for the rest of their lives either for their brother, sister or whomever, especially given that when they were turning a profit on their gambles, they didn't exactly share it with us.

Scrag

Lucky for you having more than one house. if you borrow money you pay it back.

cookie1977

The Corinthian wrote: »

No, but I doubt if anyone wants to cripple themselves for the rest of their lives either for their brother, sister or whomever, especially given that when they were turning a profit on their gambles, they didn't exactly share it with us.

You're just speculating now. The fact is the country is in a mess financially and everyone will have to take some pain to get the majority of it back working. We can sit around pointing the finger at who caused what but it's not going to extricate us from the mess. Neither is seeing 100,000 of people in social housing or on the street. We need a large majority to partake in the economy or it simply will not grow. Discarding such a vast number of people to essentially be reliant on the state will do no one any good. If people are so unhappy with the perceived unfairness why stay here?

The Spider

The Corinthian wrote: »

No, but I doubt if anyone wants to cripple themselves for the rest of their lives either for their brother, sister or whomever, especially given that when they were turning a profit on their gambles, they didn't exactly share it with us.

Ha don't know too many families think that way, maybe I'm wrong, and either way it's time to grow up, you can't have the population in penuary to prove a few renters right.

Zamboni

The Spider wrote: »

Fine, except most other people don't see things that way, no one wants to see their brother, sister, so, or daughter caught with unsustainable bills for the rest of their lives, if you asked them would they want them to have a writedown even if the taxpayer pays, the vast majority will have no problem with it.

Nobody wants to see their brothers/sisters/ [insert whatever heartstring pulling relation you want] in prison either but people must be accountable for the consequences of their actions.

The Spider

Zamboni wrote: »

Nobody wants to see their brothers/sisters/ [insert whatever heartstring pulling relation you want] in prison either but people must be accountable for the consequences of their actions.

Yes and you're accountable by not buying a house, you didn't pay stamp duty to contribute to the economy, you didn't furnish a house to contribute to the economy, you didn't pay all the other costs associated with buying a house.

And now the consequences of your actions mean that you won't get a bailout and will have to continue renting.

Zamboni

The Spider wrote: »

Yes and you're accountable by not buying a house, you didn't pay stamp duty to contribute to the economy, you didn't furnish a house to contribute to the economy, you didn't pay all the other costs associated with buying a house.

And now the consequences of your actions mean that you won't get a bailout and will have to continue renting.

Perhaps you could outline the legislation or banking regulation that required me to enter into a house purchase for the sake of the economy and where my lack-of would results in these consequences?

Edit - I'm actually annoyed with myself for even dignifying your nonsensical post with a response.

The Spider

Zamboni wrote: »

Perhaps you could outline the legislation or banking regulation that required me to enter into a house purchase for the sake of the economy and where my lack-of would results in these consequences?

Edit - I'm actually annoyed with myself for even dignifying your nonsensical post with a response.

No legislation required, just as there's none required for banks to do deals with people.

lima

The Spider wrote: »

Yes and you're accountable by not buying a house, you didn't pay stamp duty to contribute to the economy, you didn't furnish a house to contribute to the economy, you didn't pay all the other costs associated with buying a house.

And now the consequences of your actions mean that you won't get a bailout and will have to continue renting.

don't be silly now

The Spider

lima wrote: »

don't be silly now

Well it's true, if people had bought instead of waiting, maybe they'd be getting bailouts too.

Caveat: I waited till last year.

The Corinthian

cookie1977 wrote: »

You're just speculating now. The fact is the country is in a mess financially and everyone will have to take some pain to get the majority of it back working.

To begin with everyone is taking some pain already.

Secondly, and keeping with the familial analogy (although it is a very poor one), I would not object to helping out a sibling in trouble, but I would object to helping out a sibling in trouble who cannot accept that they are in any way responsible for that trouble they're in.

Any possible solution to the present mortgage quagmire will almost certainly involve some element of everyone taking a hit - even those who never speculated and/or bought during the bubble. However, what I have increasingly been hearing is appeals to emotion and claims of blameless victimhood from those who did indeed gamble and lost, often recklessly, during that bubble and how they should not be made to suffer.

A number of possible solutions have been mooted in the past, but all of them have included the mortgage holders taking a hit; one example was whereby a house that lost value, the government or banks could step in and buy the negative equity, up to the current value of the property and then own equity of that property in line with that current value.

Immediately people started to complain that the government or banks should be getting a share according to 'boom' and not current prices, for some bizarre reason. And why shouldn't they just pay for all the negative equity and let the home owners just keep it?

Much the same can be said of the personal insolvency bill, with many attacking it because they feel the personal restrictions that come with it are too severe. What were they expecting? Some short term slap on the wrist?

All this comes from a sense of entitlement that really does not do much to convince non-mortgage holders where it comes to wanting to shell out for their fellow citizen. More than that, it simply re-enforces the idea that if we take a gamble, we can keep the profits if we win and someone else can pay for our losses when we lose.

Statistically speaking, those hardest hit by the bursting bubble were also the most reckless. Those who overstretched themselves on payments. Those who bought late in the bubble when it was clear to all that it was a bubble. Those who did so on the basis of capital appreciation rather than any solid financial plan.

Note that this also means that many who did buy but did so prudently will not benefit from any 'bail-out', because they actually can pay their mortgage. Their prudence will end up punished just as much as anyone who stayed out of the market altogether.

In the end, unless those who do find themselves accept their won culpability, and in turn accept that the way out of this mess will still hit them harder in the end than those who are not and stop seeking a no-strings attached bail out, you'll not find much sympathy from the rest of the population.

cookie1977

The Corinthian wrote: »

To begin with everyone is taking some pain already.

Secondly, and keeping with the familial analogy (although it is a very poor one), I would not object to helping out a sibling in trouble, but I would object to helping out a sibling in trouble who cannot accept that they are in any way responsible for that trouble they're in.

Any possible solution to the present mortgage quagmire will almost certainly involve some element of everyone taking a hit - even those who never speculated and/or bought during the bubble. However, what I have increasingly been hearing is appeals to emotion and claims of blameless victimhood from those who did indeed gamble and lost, often recklessly, during that bubble and how they should not be made to suffer.

A number of possible solutions have been mooted in the past, but all of them have included the mortgage holders taking a hit; one example was whereby a house that lost value, the government or banks could step in and buy the negative equity, up to the current value of the property and then own equity of that property in line with that current value.

Immediately people started to complain that the government or banks should be getting a share according to 'boom' and not current prices, for some bizarre reason. And why shouldn't they just pay for all the negative equity and let the home owners just keep it?

Much the same can be said of the personal insolvency bill, with many attacking it because they feel the personal restrictions that come with it are too severe. What were they expecting? Some short term slap on the wrist?

All this comes from a sense of entitlement that really does not do much to convince non-mortgage holders where it comes to wanting to shell out for their fellow citizen. More than that, it simply re-enforces the idea that if we take a gamble, we can keep the profits if we win and someone else can pay for our losses when we lose.

Statistically speaking, those hardest hit by the bursting bubble were also the most reckless. Those who overstretched themselves on payments. Those who bought late in the bubble when it was clear to all that it was a bubble. Those who did so on the basis of capital appreciation rather than any solid financial plan.

Note that this also means that many who did buy but did so prudently will not benefit from any 'bail-out', because they actually can pay their mortgage. Their prudence will end up punished just as much as anyone who stayed out of the market altogether.

In the end, unless those who do find themselves accept their won culpability, and in turn accept that the way out of this mess will still hit them harder in the end than those who are not and stop seeking a no-strings attached bail out, you'll not find much sympathy from the rest of the population.

I agree with pretty much all you're saying. I think part of the problem is we're not hearing enough about the people who are in trouble but trying to work their way out. It makes much better stories to hear about scroungers and wasters wanting everything their way.

As you've said everyone has to take some pain and a responsible solution that paves the way for a recovery and a resolution to debt where people who got into debt have to take major hits (but not penal ones if they're trying their best) and wake up to the situation they in part created for themselves. And to add to that those that would rather stick two fingers up at those in debt have to realise that they cannot go it alone in bringing this country back to some sort of prosperity or they will find that not much will change in the forcible future.

The Spider

The Corinthian wrote: »

To begin with everyone is taking some pain already.

Secondly, and keeping with the familial analogy (although it is a very poor one), I would not object to helping out a sibling in trouble, but I would object to helping out a sibling in trouble who cannot accept that they are in any way responsible for that trouble they're in.

Any possible solution to the present mortgage quagmire will almost certainly involve some element of everyone taking a hit - even those who never speculated and/or bought during the bubble. However, what I have increasingly been hearing is appeals to emotion and claims of blameless victimhood from those who did indeed gamble and lost, often recklessly, during that bubble and how they should not be made to suffer.

A number of possible solutions have been mooted in the past, but all of them have included the mortgage holders taking a hit; one example was whereby a house that lost value, the government or banks could step in and buy the negative equity, up to the current value of the property and then own equity of that property in line with that current value.

Immediately people started to complain that the government or banks should be getting a share according to 'boom' and not current prices, for some bizarre reason. And why shouldn't they just pay for all the negative equity and let the home owners just keep it?

Much the same can be said of the personal insolvency bill, with many attacking it because they feel the personal restrictions that come with it are too severe. What were they expecting? Some short term slap on the wrist?

All this comes from a sense of entitlement that really does not do much to convince non-mortgage holders where it comes to wanting to shell out for their fellow citizen. More than that, it simply re-enforces the idea that if we take a gamble, we can keep the profits if we win and someone else can pay for our losses when we lose.

Statistically speaking, those hardest hit by the bursting bubble were also the most reckless. Those who overstretched themselves on payments. Those who bought late in the bubble when it was clear to all that it was a bubble. Those who did so on the basis of capital appreciation rather than any solid financial plan.

Note that this also means that many who did buy but did so prudently will not benefit from any 'bail-out', because they actually can pay their mortgage. Their prudence will end up punished just as much as anyone who stayed out of the market altogether.

In the end, unless those who do find themselves accept their won culpability, and in turn accept that the way out of this mess will still hit them harder in the end than those who are not and stop seeking a no-strings attached bail out, you'll not find much sympathy from the rest of the population.

Yes and on that, let's look at what some of the leading lights were saying to the people:

RTE News, April 7th, 2006:

"The Taoiseach has said he does not see a great problem with the levels of borrowing to buy property. Mr Ahern said there had been predictions of a huge downturn in 2005. He added the bad advice given by so many resulted in some people making mistakes when they should have bought property last year. "

Bertie Ahern


Sunday Times Money section, 31 July 2005:

"The lenders who have come up with the 100% [mortgage] have balanced the risk. Of 100 people that take out these mortgages, maybe 95 will be okay and five will get in serious trouble and the banks can take care of that trouble."

Brendan Burgess

Speech to Irish Home Builders Association, 12 May 2006:

"In recent months an acceleration in Irish house price inflation has raised concerns that the property market might be developing in a way that threatens not only the stability of that market but also the health of the broader Irish economy. I think these fears are exaggerated.

[..]

I think it is only slightly provocative to suggest that a more pertinent question is to ask why Irish house prices are rising so slowly.

Austin Hughes, Chief Economist, IIB Bank



Daft.ie report, 2 Aug 2006:

"Despite some overvaluation in the market, [a downturn in the market] is unlikely. Two fundamental events justify the reacceleration in prices since this time last year. As last year drew to a close, the expected release of SSIA moneys, which began this May, became bankable as deposit leverage. The second more significant event was that at the turn of the year banks became much more liberal with mortgage lending policies. Old multiples of gross income went out. New, and more liberal, measures of net income came in. More important still was the lengthening of mortgage repayment periods - with 40 year mortgages now not uncommon."


Marc Coleman


"One can only surmise what the average millionaire will be able to buy in Dublin in another nine years.

A pokey one-bed apartment in the outer suburbs? Or maybe a townhouse on a new development bought under the local authority's affordable housing scheme? Will the semi-d become the preserve of the multimillionaire while only the super rich will afford the luxury of living detached?"


Irish Times




"I'm a great fan of property developers because I believe they turned the country around"

[...]

"These guys are really our merchant princes. I think there's been a lot of pointless tut-tutting in relation to the amount of money they've made. The likes of Sean Dunne, Harry Crosby and Johnny Ronan pulled Ireland up by its bootlaces and propelled it into the future"


Gerry Ryan



All the above are what people read and listened to, they weren't on internet forums, they were told by the government and by society that if they don't buy they're screwed, they have a case to say that they were falsley coerced into buying houses they couldn't afford, they were given 110 percent mortgages, they were told property only goes up.


Now you can sit around and say they should've known I did, but the fact is someone who's out driving a taxi all day only has what they're told on the radio and the papers to go on, the same can be said of people working in factories, labouring etc.


Threats of only multimillionaires will be able to afford a 3 bed semi in Dublin would scare the bejaysus out of anyone who thought that's it I'll never have a house if I don't but now, I can't afford it really but if I don't jump I'm twice as fecked.

And there's a whole host more at this site

http://quotesfromthebubble.blogspot.co.uk/

The Corinthian

Then let's just bar them from ever being allowed to purchase property, as it it is impossible to legislate against stupid opinions or advice. Shall we say that you need to be a university graduate to buy?

Maybe we can just not prosecute people if they're not aware that something is a crime?

Clearly they're not qualified to make informed decisions democratically either.

Or perhaps we have to accept that people do ultimately have personal responsibility for their actions and choices, especially if they have right to carry them out.