Should we be worried about property bubble re-inflation?

chopper6

everdead.ie wrote: »

As I said it would only be natural that the private sector would be the main driver behind purchasing property given the private sector is significantly larger than the public sector.

It is hardly opinion to state that people who are public sector employees purchased houses and apartments and helped their kids get on the property ladder.

It is highly unlikely just "some" Gardai, the public sector mentality was no different from the rest of the mob mentality at the time.

Yes it was...PS wages werent,and still arent enough to enable people to purchase multiple properties on a whim.

everdead.ie

chopper6 wrote: »

Yes it was...PS wages werent,and still arent enough to enable people to purchase multiple properties on a whim.

If people could get loans without having proper collateral or a stable job. Then a relatively safe job in the public service could definitely get a second mortgage.

It all depended on a number of factors obviously, holiday home or rental accommodation, how much money would be needed over and above rent received etc.

But this black and white world you seem to think existed didn't.

chopper6

everdead.ie wrote: »

If people could get loans without having proper collateral or a stable job. Then a relatively safe job in the public service could definitely get a second mortgage.

It all depended on a number of factors obviously, holiday home or rental accommodation, how much money would be needed over and above rent received etc.

But this black and white world you seem to think existed didn't.

Sorry where's your proof that we all got caught up in this madness?

I've already said that nobody where i worked bought to let...one or two have hoilday homes abroad but it was the high-earning spouse who funded it.

jmayo

Sierra Oscar wrote: »

What I can't understand is why the government is rushing to have a fire-sale of the NAMA portfolio. It was setup to make a long term economic return for the state, yet the government want to wrap up its operations by 2016. If they do that then we will not be making the returns we should be making for providing stability for the market back in 2009.

Of course when you think about it, it is clear that the government want to wrap up NAMA for 2016 so that they can head into an election with some nice soundbites that they can apply to PR spin.

The government is placing short term benefits ahead of longer term stability. Its funny, because as someone who can see where FF slipped up in the past I can see that FG / LAB are about to make the exact same mistakes. Wait and see!

Part of it may be trying to clsoe off NaMA so that they can go to the electorate and say look how we got rid of the nasty fianna fail creation.

Then again they may actually figure this will be as good as it gets for the next 10/20 odd years.
I always think of Japan and how it's property bubble has taken decades to work through.
Contrary to what shyt* noonan is pedalling he cannot fail to see how bad things still are, how bad the banks really are, how exposed SMEs are and how we are not growing enough.

chopper6 wrote: »

You're wrong.

Having worked in the Public sector for over 20 years i can tell you that almost nobody i've ever heard of speculated in property on a PS wage.

A PS job is considered a job for life but it is NOT considered a way to get rich and knowing this most PS pensioners would be very carefull about potentially blowing their savings/pension on a "get rich quick scheme".

Wasn't one of the first guys to get insolvency or new bankruptcy a HSE employee in Donegal ???

chopper6 wrote: »

Remember a 65 year old retiring now would know a thing or two about previous recessions and in fairness would have a certain amount of cop on,having worked for decades to secure his pension.

Most of these PS pensioners would be grandparents with thier own children in full time emplyment and probably mortages of thier own.

Actually I would bet a small amount of these may have remortgaged and released equity in their homes to facilitate the younger generation ascend of the property ladder.
And IMHO this goes for both public and private of a certain generation.

everdead.ie wrote: »

As I said it would only be natural that the private sector would be the main driver behind purchasing property given the private sector is significantly larger than the public sector.

It is hardly opinion to state that people who are public sector employees purchased houses and apartments and helped their kids get on the property ladder.

It is highly unlikely just "some" Gardai, the public sector mentality was no different from the rest of the mob mentality at the time.

If you took out people actually involved in construction I would bet most of the of the private sector investors and speculators during the boom were the professional classes, not the ordinary joe soaps who had PAYE jobs.

Ordinary joe soaps at the bottom of the public sector were not the investors but Gardaí, older teachers, doctors, middle management, engineers, judges, etc are public sector employees and a fair chunk of them I would bet were involved in property investment.

everdead.ie

chopper6 wrote: »

Sorry where's your proof that we all got caught up in this madness?

I've already said that nobody where i worked bought to let...one or two have hoilday homes abroad but it was the high-earning spouse who funded it.

My experience is mostly of people who have been crushed by the pension levy who were able to afford their loan repayments but are now really stretching to pay them off. Again anecdotal evidence just like yours but I don't think it's fair to use that as a broad marker of the whole public sector.

But your stance is simply black and white you are entrenched in the idea that the public sector workers are all victims when not all of them are. Much like the private sector but hey let's remove the 20 to maybe 200 people you work with from the 300,000 public sector workers so?

gaius c

everdead.ie wrote: »

If their really is a housing bubble that would only exacerbate the issue.

I think the floppy haired one is speaking out of frustration. We've had two bubbles one after the other and the response to the correction of the last one has been to inflate a new one.

chopper6 wrote: »

What we REALLy need is another Eircom-style flotation to hoover up any savings we might have lying around and fleece those too cautious to "invest" in property.

Pump and dump?
That's pretty much what is happening right now. Over half the market is cash and I have direct experience that cash rich folk are desperate to invest in bricks & mortar. Can this keep going indefinitely???

creedp wrote: »

The last bubble happenned because people were led to believe (and actually believed) that there was gold in them there properties and there was an infinite supply of cheap credit being trown around by the banks.

Its infinitely possible that the first part of the equation will repeat itself again but the 2nd part won't. The only people who will drive the bubble part deux are people with their own money and therefore if they lose out in the future the taxpayer will not be in the hock!

This one is fueled by foreclosure stuffing and the hoovering up of remaining cash is likely to be the bull trap to end all bull traps.

You could argue that "it's only their own money" and the taxpayer isn't on the firing line for clearing up more debt but think of how much more productive use the money could have been put to.

miju wrote: »

I can see some benefit to the tax payer IF NAMA were to be able to sell off their portfolio at a profit / no loss thus actually coming through the FF plan for NAMA in the first place.

Obviously for that to happen the market and Irish people will have to bear higher prices which in the grand scheme of things wont be a bad thing IF its not constant rising prices and a dead cat bounce doesnt happen which seems to be starting to occur.

Any "benefit to the taxpayer" is at the cost of folk down the line paying over the odds, i.e. future FTB's. The bill has merely been passed onto the generation that benefited least from the bubble yet are expected to pay for the clean-up while those that ruined themselves get discounts on their mortgages.
There is going to be trouble ahead.

gaius c

And to follow on from my point about cash being diverted into property that could be used elsewhere:

Meanwhile, Q4 2013 balance of payments statistics revealed weakness in more traditional sources of investment in Ireland as non-IFSC FDI fell by roughly one third on 2012 levels, down almost EUR6.3 billion. As the result, total balance on financial account collapsed from a surplus EUR987 million in 2012 to a deficit of EUR10 billion in 2013.

Put simply, stripping out commercial and residential property prices acceleration in Dublin, there is little real investment activity anywhere in the economy. Certainly not enough to get employment and domestic demand off their knees. And this dynamic is very similar to what we are witnessing across the euro area. In 2013, euro area gross fixed capital formation fell, year on year, in three quarters out of four, with Q4 2013 figures barely above Q4 2012 levels, up just 0.1 percent.

Link

Godge

gaius c wrote: »

I think the floppy haired one is speaking out of frustration. We've had two bubbles one after the other and the response to the correction of the last one has been to inflate a new one.

Pump and dump?
That's pretty much what is happening right now. Over half the market is cash and I have direct experience that cash rich folk are desperate to invest in bricks & mortar. Can this keep going indefinitely???

This one is fueled by foreclosure stuffing and the hoovering up of remaining cash is likely to be the bull trap to end all bull traps.

You could argue that "it's only their own money" and the taxpayer isn't on the firing line for clearing up more debt but think of how much more productive use the money could have been put to.


Any "benefit to the taxpayer" is at the cost of folk down the line paying over the odds, i.e. future FTB's. The bill has merely been passed onto the generation that benefited least from the bubble yet are expected to pay for the clean-up while those that ruined themselves get discounts on their mortgages.
There is going to be trouble ahead.

If cash buyers are replacing indebted households, then we are seeing a net paydown of private debt. The losers are those who pay in cash if the market is in a bubble again but if the net result is a reduction in overall private debt, that is a plus for the economy given the size of the overhang.

Given that such people are not likely to invest in shares or businesses, there is little lost to business investment and the conversion of cash piles to reduce debt is good at the macro level.

Farmer Pudsey

Godge wrote: »

If cash buyers are replacing indebted households, then we are seeing a net paydown of private debt. The losers are those who pay in cash if the market is in a bubble again but if the net result is a reduction in overall private debt, that is a plus for the economy given the size of the overhang.

Given that such people are not likely to invest in shares or businesses, there is little lost to business investment and the conversion of cash piles to reduce debt is good at the macro level.

There is a bit of bottom fishing going on at present. People who were a bit astute during the boom and did not get carried away are now starting to invest. They presume that the worst is over and are starting to invest in property. While maybe not totally cash buyers, they are often people who will have large equity in the investment > 25%. Nost of these people will be able to ride any further downturn in the main.

Not a fan of investing in houses or apartments however consider there is value out there at present with regarding to rental returns. See a lot of apartments in larger towns/smaller cities sub 50K with rental returns of 500/month. Property tax will not be an issue, water charges will be paid by tenant I presume. Biggest negative factor is some later boom build complexs are 99 years tenure as opposed to 999 years and managment charge at over 1K are high in some cases.

mariaalice

There is nothing can be done about this, every interference by the state just causes another problem down the line, plus access to information and expectation have changed the housing market, for example now people talk all the time of wanting to buy in an area with good schools and people are obsessed with anti social behaviour in an area, in my day knowledge of such issues and the relevance of such issues didn't arise. A school was a school and that was it.

maryishere

Farmer Pudsey wrote: »

See a lot of apartments in larger towns/smaller cities sub 50K

True enough. There is no property bubble now outside of Dublin, prices are still depressed. A cousin bought an apartment for 40k, that's less than hers years salary. A country where in most counties you can buy a fine apartment for less than a years salary (ok, she bought it with 10 or 15 years savings, but you know what I mean ) is not experiencing a property bubble.

chopper6

maryishere wrote: »

True enough. There is no property bubble now outside of Dublin, prices are still depressed. A cousin bought an apartment for 40k, that's less than hers years salary. A country where in most counties you can buy a fine apartment for less than a years salary (ok, she bought it with 10 or 15 years savings, but you know what I mean ) is not experiencing a property bubble.

Teh cheap apartments are in places people really dont want to live.

You can get an apartment in longford for 40 k but the population is down by at least 20% on ten years ago and unless you actually work there,there really isnt an awfull lot to do.

You can still but sub 80k houses in some parts of Dublin too but again,they're not the sorts of places people are queuing up to live in.

Just look at the launch prices for the new developments in places like Stepaside and Newcastle...miles from anywhere and asking prices in the 400k range and there's people camping out to buy them.

Utter madness IMO and very much a bubble situation.

Farmer Pudsey

chopper6 wrote: »

Teh cheap apartments are in places people really dont want to live.

You can get an apartment in longford for 40 k but the population is down by at least 20% on ten years ago and unless you actually work there,there really isnt an awfull lot to do.

You can still but sub 80k houses in some parts of Dublin too but again,they're not the sorts of places people are queuing up to live in.

Just look at the launch prices for the new developments in places like Stepaside and Newcastle...miles from anywhere and asking prices in the 400k range and there's people camping out to buy them.

Utter madness IMO and very much a bubble situation.

Issue in Dublin is a supply/demand. It is not like the mid noughties where houses were being build at a large rate and sold right across the country for 2-3 times there prices now. Yes there is an issue with house supply in Dublin.

Could people over pay for houses yes however there are no 100% mortgages and definitely no 120% loans. In most cases buyers (owner occupiers) have to have 20% of price saved. Lenders are stress testing borrowers who may still have 30-40% of there own equity.

Property tax will dampen expectations over time as people find that due to property tax and water charges they have 14 repayments (12 mortgage, LPT and water charges) not 12. The mid noughties bubble was exasperated by lenders giving 100%+ loans to people speculating. At present any investors are expected to put up 25% of there own money if investing in houses. If they fail to make repayments, the bank's loan is more or less covered by the value of the property and the Borrower may lose there investment.

golfwallah

chopper6 wrote: »

Utter madness IMO and very much a bubble situation.

Perhaps - time will tell.

Also there's a big difference between bubble madness financed by borrowings and bubble madness financed out of savings.

Should things go wrong again, unlike losses on borrowings that still hang over borrowers after the event, buyers can walk away from losses out of savings, hard and all as that might be. And the taxpayer won't have to carry the can.

Back to normality - "let the buyer beware"!

chopper6

golfwallah wrote: »

Perhaps - time will tell.

Also there's a big difference between bubble madness financed by borrowings and bubble madness financed out of savings.

Should things go wrong again, unlike losses on borrowings that still hang over borrowers after the event, buyers can walk away from losses out of savings, hard and all as that might be. And the taxpayer won't have to carry the can.

Back to normality - "let the buyer beware"!

You have a point but a bubble fueled by saving will still ignite a frenzy of borrowing as people rush to do what everybody elsee seems to be doing.

I already heard a guy in work telling me a friend of his has gotten his dad to go guarantor on a mortage on a completely overpriced place IMO.

It will end up being his father's problem if he falls into difficulties...madness.

Another person i know got a mortage by maxing out three credit cards to scrape the 5000 k deposit together.
Banks will lend the money these days if you approach it the right way.

golfwallah

chopper6 wrote: »

You have a point but a bubble fueled by saving will still ignite a frenzy of borrowing as people rush to do what everybody elsee seems to be doing.

I already heard a guy in work telling me a friend of his has gotten his dad to go guarantor on a mortage on a completely overpriced place IMO.

It will end up being his father's problem if he falls into difficulties...madness.

Another person i know got a mortage by maxing out three credit cards to scrape the 5000 k deposit together.
Banks will lend the money these days if you approach it the right way.

Like the weather, we all know of people taking risks with property – or, more to the point, talk of people taking such risks. And no government can legislate against people putting up guarantees for others or maxing out on credit cards. We live in a free society. But people have to live with the consequences of their actions, even when they take risks for loved ones. Government can’t bail out all loans that go bad.

More to the point, I don’t see any evidence of a “frenzy of borrowing”. Just where is all the money going to come from to make this happen? Sure there will always be exceptions and people are free to take reckless risks but I think you are overstating your case somewhat.

An asset bubble requires many people (tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands) to pour money, their own or borrowings, into one class of asset. And prudent banking requires a spread of risk – not putting too high a proportion of their lending into one area of the economy, as happened during the Celtic Tiger, when normal prudential lending rules went out the window.

That does not mean that housing is not overpriced – it is, by reference to the multiples of earnings required to buy a property in Dublin, at least. But that’s a different problem – caused by shortage of housing to meet a pent up demand and can only be tackled effectively by increasing the number of houses available for sale in Dublin.

everdead.ie

chopper6 wrote: »

You have a point but a bubble fueled by saving will still ignite a frenzy of borrowing as people rush to do what everybody elsee seems to be doing.

I already heard a guy in work telling me a friend of his has gotten his dad to go guarantor on a mortage on a completely overpriced place IMO.

It will end up being his father's problem if he falls into difficulties...madness.

Another person i know got a mortage by maxing out three credit cards to scrape the 5000 k deposit together.
Banks will lend the money these days if you approach it the right way.

Out of curiosity if he has to max out his credit cards to put down the 5k deposit where is he going to get the rest of the deposit from?

The former having the father as guarantor is far more common I don't particularly take issue with it and wether it's over priced or not doesn't really matter it's wether he can afford it which is the big issue. I hope for his and his families sake. He can afford it.

chopper6

[QUOTE=everdead.ie;90057310.[/QUOTE]]Out of curiosity if he has to max out his credit cards to put down the 5k deposit where is he going to get the rest of the deposit from?.[/QUOTE]

He got a "gift" of 20k from the parents.

[QUOTE=everdead.ie;90057310.[/QUOTE]]The former having the father as guarantor is far more common I don't particularly take issue with it and wether it's over priced or not doesn't really matter it's wether he can afford it which is the big issue. I hope for his and his families sake. He can afford it.[/QUOTE]

Yep me too...i certainly wouldnt be asking my parents to put themselves in financial risk when they should be settled and more or less debt free in thier 60's.

sparky42

chopper6 wrote: »

You have a point but a bubble fueled by saving will still ignite a frenzy of borrowing as people rush to do what everybody elsee seems to be doing.

I already heard a guy in work telling me a friend of his has gotten his dad to go guarantor on a mortage on a completely overpriced place IMO.

It will end up being his father's problem if he falls into difficulties...madness.

Another person i know got a mortage by maxing out three credit cards to scrape the 5000 k deposit together.
Banks will lend the money these days if you approach it the right way.

How can we protect against stupidity? After the last five years if people haven't learned anything and are willing to start playing silly buggers with mortgages, then all we can do is insure that the banks have enough reserves to deal with it. If they've played games to get a house and find out that they can't afford it I have no sympathy for them and don't want to hear any complaints from them.

The prices are increasing because a) we have had 5 years of epically low build rates that have left a gap of about 100K+ of units b) the population hasn't stopped growing and c) they have to rise, in some areas the price is still not enough for builders to even break even let alone make any profit.

creedp

sparky42 wrote: »

c) they have to rise, in some areas the price is still not enough for builders to even break even let alone make any profit.

Important point that's often overlooked by people who argue that house prices should be further substantially reduced. If you can't build them for the rock bottom price sought what will the long term result be for house supply?

sparky42

creedp wrote: »

Important point that's often overlooked by people who argue that house prices should be further substantially reduced. If you can't build them for the rock bottom price sought what will the long term result be for house supply?

No houses being built, every study suggests around 30K a year needs to be built in Ireland to deal with old stock that isn't viable anymore and population increase. The spikes we are seeing now is directly tied into 5 years of tiny production (less than 30K in total) and a generation that isn't burdened with debt starting to look for housing. Outside of the spiking areas in Dublin there's still little to any profit for construction companies to build at the moment. How anyone can look at a 50%+ fall and say that its still overvalued isn't understanding the market forces. (I'm not saying allow/support a return to the lunatic prices but what everyone glosses over is we were willing to pay those prices)

Now I think it's past time that we as a Nation start realising that Semi-D's for everyone just isn't going to work, in Dublin and a degree Cork we need good quality Apartment blocks to stop urban sprawl (before Lenister is just Dublin suburbs).

Farmer Pudsey

sparky42 wrote: »

No houses being built, every study suggests around 30K a year needs to be built in Ireland to deal with old stock that isn't viable anymore and population increase. The spikes we are seeing now is directly tied into 5 years of tiny production (less than 30K in total) and a generation that isn't burdened with debt starting to look for housing. Outside of the spiking areas in Dublin there's still little to any profit for construction companies to build at the moment. How anyone can look at a 50%+ fall and say that its still overvalued isn't understanding the market forces. (I'm not saying allow/support a return to the lunatic prices but what everyone glosses over is we were willing to pay those prices)

Now I think it's past time that we as a Nation start realising that Semi-D's for everyone just isn't going to work, in Dublin and a degree Cork we need good quality Apartment blocks to stop urban sprawl (before Lenister is just Dublin suburbs).

The biggest issue in dDublin is the amount of unbuild or area's that fallen in derilection in the center of Dublin. Lots of hoarding of site is going on. In the Bacon report of the mid 90's it was purposed taht if develoment was not build on it or owner did not sell it on within two year that it would attract a super tax. This was implemented by the FG/Lab government of the mid90's however it was repealed by the FF/PD in 2003. This would stop the hoarding of development site and allow there utilisation and might keep site prices down.

chopper6

sparky42 wrote: »

Now I think it's past time that we as a Nation start realising that Semi-D's for everyone just isn't going to work, in Dublin and a degree Cork we need good quality Apartment blocks to stop urban sprawl (before Lenister is just Dublin suburbs).

Who's going to build them? The likes of Tom McFeeley?

sparky42

chopper6 wrote: »

Who's going to build them? The likes of Tom McFeeley?

There are plenty of good apartment blocks and plenty of equally bad Semi-D's, perhaps if the councils building inspectors actually you know inspected once in a while things would be different.

Maybe you like Urban sprawl with all the massive costs it brings but I'd prefer to avoid it.

sparky42

Farmer Pudsey wrote: »

The biggest issue in dDublin is the amount of unbuild or area's that fallen in derilection in the center of Dublin. Lots of hoarding of site is going on. In the Bacon report of the mid 90's it was purposed taht if develoment was not build on it or owner did not sell it on within two year that it would attract a super tax. This was implemented by the FG/Lab government of the mid90's however it was repealed by the FF/PD in 2003. This would stop the hoarding of development site and allow there utilisation and might keep site prices down.

Ideally yes, the problem right now is that many of the builders are either unable to get credit to develop or are in NAMA anyway. The market is still dysfunctional as is which is adding to the issue. However there is also Council actions that is impeding developments.

The Site Prices are one thing but the cost of construction is more than just that, even if you manage to stabillise the site, right now the rest of the development costs are more than what the builder will get in many cases.

chopper6

sparky42 wrote: »

There are plenty of good apartment blocks and plenty of equally bad Semi-D's, perhaps if the councils building inspectors actually you know inspected once in a while things would be different.

Maybe you like Urban sprawl with all the massive costs it brings but I'd prefer to avoid it.

There are no "good" apartment blocks built in the last ten years.

And i fail to see how inspecting private developments is a job for the council,especially as they're on the bones of thier arse after all the funding cuts they've taken to bail out the developers.

Farmer Pudsey

chopper6 wrote: »

There are no "good" apartment blocks built in the last ten years.

And i fail to see how inspecting private developments is a job for teh council.

In most country's there is a building regulatory body, especially where apartments are concerned. They are usually attached to llocal Government. This was supposed to happen during the boom but the council took the development levy's and failed tomake any checks. They left the supervisory duties to the professional engineers attached to the developers. These inviduals were compromised, and often site managers ingnored them. They also made sure area's were slabbed or closed off so that they could not be inspected.

In the case of apartments you need a professional inspection/regulatory authority to make sure there is no short cuts. Other wise we will have a lot more Priory Park type issue's

sparky42

chopper6 wrote: »

There are no "good" apartment blocks built in the last ten years.

And i fail to see how inspecting private developments is a job for the council,especially as they're on the bones of thier arse after all the funding cuts they've taken to bail out the developers.

There are good developments, it was the muppets in Dublin creating shoebox ones with bad sizes/quality that's the issue. Every other nation has high rises, some good some bad, what they don't have is the Irish obsession with owning property as a be all and end all of things.

By the way, IT'S THEIR JOB! to inspect developments and sign off on plans. As in we pay somebody in the councils to look at a developers plans evaluate them for size/quality/fire safety/environmental certification/materials used etc (ie Fire officers, town/city engineer department) and sign off them and the CIF has been lobbying for decades for them to be onsite inspecting the construction as it happens, just like happens in every other nation with a proper planning process. We pay them and the Developer pays them. The Dublin officers that signed off on the McFreeley apartments should have faced sanctions for failing to do so and endangering lives.

chopper6

Farmer Pudsey wrote: »

In the case of apartments you need a professional inspection/regulatory authority to make sure there is no short cuts. Other wise we will have a lot more Priory Park type issue's

This is what i find sickening...the builders will cut corners and endanger lives *if* nobody is looking over thier shoulders all the time?

Priory hall is just the tip of the iceberg to say nothing of the huge number of estates riddled with pyrite by greedy builders...my own sister's house included.

Anybody who thinks any subsequent building boom will be any better needs thier head examined...the private sector is full of crooks...they should be in jail.

sparky42

chopper6 wrote: »

This is what i find sickening...the builders will cut corners and endanger lives *if* nobody is looking over thier shoulders all the time?

Priory hall is just the tip of the iceberg to say nothing of the huge number of estates riddled with pyrite by greedy builders...my own sister's house included.

Anybody who thinks any subsequent building boom will be any better needs thier head examined...the private sector is full of crooks...they should be in jail.

I'm sure you've never cut a corner at work, never taken a quick way out of a situation. It's human nature you are arguing against there.

It wasn't the builders that are to blame for Pyrite, it's a couple of the quarries in the midlands that slipped it into the mix without telling anyone. There was no way short of testing every lorry load of fill for them to know until it began to display, by which time all the quarries responsible were gone.

And the pubic sector is no better at screwing around so get off your high horse, or should we list the billions that they have wasted over the decades as well (and with no punishment for said waste either). Should the Dublin Council officers that signed off on wrong plans be sent to Jail?

chopper6

sparky42 wrote: »

And the pubic sector is no better at screwing around so get off your high horse, or should we list the billions that they have wasted over the decades as well (and with no punishment for said waste either).

So the public sector are the ones building substandard housing,pocketing the profits and leaving the taxpayer to pick up the tab?

Interesting.

Is it a public sector "construction boom" that Ronan Lyons and his cronies are lobbying for or yet more badly built kips for buy-to-let "landlords" to gouge people to stay in?

I seem to recall taking a 20% pay cut in the name of the bank bailout and all the other nonsense that went with the "boom" so you can understand my sceptism...Tom McFeely and Sean Dunne aren't exactly queuing up at the the soup kitchen now are they.

sparky42

chopper6 wrote: »

So the public sector are the ones building substandard housing,pocketing the profits and leaving the taxpayer to pick up the tab?

Interesting.

Is it a public sector "construction boom" that Ronan Lyons and his cronies are lobbying for or yet more badly built kips for buy-to-let "landlords" to gouge people to stay in?

I seem to recall taking a 20% pay cut in the name of the bank bailout and all the other nonsense that went with the "boom" so you can understand my sceptism...Tom McFeely and Sean Dunne aren't exactly queuing up at the the soup kitchen now are they.

How much waste has there been in the Health Service for decades? How about transport projects that have had gone massively over budget for no reason? How about all the perks that senior management and Union officials get and which the rank and file never rally against (how many Union heads get 100K salaries while arguing about how poorly paid you are, or negotiated to protect long term members while willing screwing over young members to pay for that protection). Or the decentralisation kick, or the FAS schemes for nothing? You could take the entire national debt amount and put it into the Health department and we'd still be told the public sector wasn't getting enough.

Every worker in the state has taken cuts/tax increases so please don't hold out your cuts as anything unique, of course one could mention the number of private sector who lost everything rather than just a pay cut.

What about all the public service members in the Central bank, the financial regulator, the competition authority, the councils during the boom? What were they doing? Why did they get to retire on full pensions when they knew all the details and so utterly failed in THEIR JOB's. IT takes more than the private sector for this to happen, but like the building inspectors I guess you'd like to avoid any suggestion of fault in the public service. Neary and co aren't queuing up at the soup kitchen either but I don't see you cursing them or the civil/public services people that protected them?

Farmer Pudsey

sparky42 wrote: »

I'm sure you've never cut a corner at work, never taken a quick way out of a situation. It's human nature you are arguing against there.

It wasn't the builders that are to blame for Pyrite, it's a couple of the quarries in the midlands that slipped it into the mix without telling anyone. There was no way short of testing every lorry load of fill for them to know until it began to display, by which time all the quarries responsible were gone.

And the pubic sector is no better at screwing around so get off your high horse, or should we list the billions that they have wasted over the decades as well (and with no punishment for said waste either).

What about all the ordinary plasterer's and blocklayers that used washingup liquid as a plastizer, it is often the ordinary worker on the site who is tryiing to make his life easier. During the boom this was a huge issue as builders were afraid to say boo to them as they would leave the site and go somewhere else.

It is the same in other area's, the taxi driver that will take you for a spin, the mechanic that will service you car and not change the filters or maybe the sparkplugs, the car dealer that will sell you rubbish, the publican that serves bad liguor etc etc

sparky42

Farmer Pudsey wrote: »

What about all the ordinary plasterer's and blocklayers that used washingup liquid as a plastizer, it is often the ordinary worker on the site who is tryiing to make his life easier. During the boom this was a huge issue as builders were afraid to say boo to them as they would leave the site and go somewhere else.

It is the same in other area's, the taxi driver that will take you for a spin, the mechanic that will service you car and not change the filters or maybe the sparkplugs, the car dealer that will sell you rubbish, the publican that serves bad liguor etc etc

Exactly human nature is human nature, it happens in all sectors of work, I've made calls about taking a short cut at work to make life easier I'm sure everyone else has as well.

everdead.ie

Cutting corners on buildings is poor regulation and or poor enforcement no excuses and this self cert business is farcical.

sparky42

everdead.ie wrote: »

Cutting corners on buildings is poor regulation and or poor enforcement no excuses and this self cert business is farcical.

That's the point it wasn't meant to be self cert. There are local government personnel that are meant to review areas of the plans during development and sign off. The Dublin Fire officer should have signed off on those MCFeeley apartments (and we should be able to know exactly who did so when they clearly didn't meet fire code) but trying getting that information and doing anything with it.

chopper6

sparky42 wrote: »

Exactly human nature is human nature, it happens in all sectors of work, I've made calls about taking a short cut at work to make life easier I'm sure everyone else has as well.

There's a bit of a difference between skiving slightly at work and building substandard dwellings that actively put people's lives at risk.

This industry is a shambles...skiving and cost cutting is the norm...I met somebody at the weekend who'd bought in an apartment block some years ago where they was no partition between the individual attics...allowing a fire to rip through the building in minutes should one break out.

ANYBODY involved on a project like that,and there were thousands,knew exactly what was going on but as long as they were getting paid they didn't care.

I've another friend from Longford..at the end of his road was an area known locally as The Swamp...an apartment block was built on it and people allowed to move in...by the first October the places were flooded and unfit for human habitation....the same happened in Sallins.....houses built on the Liffey Flood plain...did the crooks involved on these builds not stop to question the morality of it?

What about that bloke who was selling the contaminated Limestone to the builders? Did he not stop to check if there was pyrite in the stuff? Course he knew,but he also knew he'd get away with it and face no sanctions whatsoever...just like the builders and their lackies the estate agents...selling wretchedly built hovels to people when they *knew* they were only fit to be knocked down.


So what happens now...did anybody in Priory Hall get their money back?

Were the pyrite dwellings knocked and rebuilt at the builders expense?

Not a bit of it...they can go to hell while the proles and the rags talk up another Construction bubble that will be exactly the same as the last one...except maybe in terms of scale.;

And of course the countryside will be ruined by these abominations and rural towns will once more enjoy nursing homes,hotels and apartment blocks that nobody uses.... while Dublin probably stretch to the border of Nth Ireland by then.

sparky42

chopper6 wrote: »

There's a bit of a difference between skiving slightly at work and building substandard dwellings that actively put people's lives at risk.

This industry is a shambles...skiving and cost cutting is the norm...I met somebody at the weekend who'd bought in an apartment block some years ago where they was no partition between the individual attics...allowing a fire to rip through the building in minutes should one break out.

ANYBODY involved on a project like that,and there were thousands,knew exactly what was going on but as long as they were getting paid they didn't care.

I've another friend from Longford..at the end of his road was an area known locally as The Swamp...an apartment block was built on it and people allowed to move in...by the first October the places were flooded and unfit for human habitation....the same happened in Sallins.....houses built on the Liffey Flood plain...did the crooks involved on these builds not stop to question the morality of it?

What about that bloke who was selling the contaminated Limestone to the builders? Did he not stop to check if there was pyrite in the stuff? Course he knew,but he also knew he'd get away with it and face no sanctions whatsoever...just like the builders and their lackies the estate agents...selling wretchedly built hovels to people when they *knew* they were only fit to be knocked down.


So what happens now...did anybody in Priory Hall get their money back?

Were the pyrite dwellings knocked and rebuilt at the builders expense?

Not a bit of it...they can go to hell while the proles and the rags talk up another Construction bubble that will be exactly the same as the last one...except maybe in terms of scale.;

And of course the countryside will be ruined by these abominations and rural towns will once more enjoy nursing homes,hotels and apartment blocks that nobody uses.... while Dublin probably stretch to the border of Nth Ireland by then.

So I notice that you have avoided any comments regarding any of the Public sector personnel involved in any and all of the issues related to or causing the boom.

Shows your blinked view.

chopper6

sparky42 wrote: »

So I notice that you have avoided any comments regarding any of the Public sector personnel involved in any and all of the issues related to or causing the boom.

Shows your blinked view.

Well we're certainly paying for any "involvement" now...paycuts,pension levies and USC payments.

I only wish I was in a position to stuff my pockets with money like the bankers and developers did before it all went sour.

MayoSalmon

sparky42 wrote: »

So I notice that you have avoided any comments regarding any of the Public sector personnel involved in any and all of the issues related to or causing the boom.

Shows your blinked view.

Ya see the thing is, virtually everybody was involved. There is plenty blame to go round.

Pyrite issue is a simple example...state inspectors blame the quarry, quarry blames the builder, builder blame the quarry, insurance companies blame all of the above and so on and so on.

The Celtic tiger has left an awful legacy of greed and corruption...it is the worst thing to ever happen to this country.

sparky42

chopper6 wrote: »

Well we're certainly paying for any "involvement" now...paycuts,pension levies and USC payments.

I only wish I was in a position to stuff my pockets with money like the bankers and developers did before it all went sour.

And all of those high end public servants, remind me how much Neary's pension is after all that he failed to do.

If they had done even a tenth of their job the bankers and developers won't have been in the position that they were in. But sure lets ignore all that.

Villa05

chopper6 wrote: »

I already heard a guy in work telling me a friend of his has gotten his dad to go guarantor on a mortage on a completely overpriced place IMO.

It will end up being his father's problem if he falls into difficulties...madness.

Another person i know got a mortage by maxing out three credit cards to scrape the 5000 k deposit together.
Banks will lend the money these days if you approach it the right way.

Another intresting example
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=90047545&postcount=6

I work for a charity so my wage is at the lower end of the scale but my position is actually directly funded by a govt. department so the bank employee I spoke to put it down as 'semi-state'

It would appear that bank staff are pushing these mortgage applications over the line indicating that quantity rather than quality is being rewarded

Add the nature of mortgage interest being variable in most cases ensuring the bear the same characteristics that brought down the banks in the US - Adjustable rate mortgages.

The Banks are very fragile (should have been put out of there misery, being honest) It will be something small that will kick it off again, I don't think that we will have to wait too long for the next collapse

gaius c

sparky42 wrote: »

No houses being built, every study suggests around 30K a year needs to be built in Ireland to deal with old stock that isn't viable anymore and population increase. The spikes we are seeing now is directly tied into 5 years of tiny production (less than 30K in total) and a generation that isn't burdened with debt starting to look for housing. Outside of the spiking areas in Dublin there's still little to any profit for construction companies to build at the moment. How anyone can look at a 50%+ fall and say that its still overvalued isn't understanding the market forces. (I'm not saying allow/support a return to the lunatic prices but what everyone glosses over is we were willing to pay those prices)

Now I think it's past time that we as a Nation start realising that Semi-D's for everyone just isn't going to work, in Dublin and a degree Cork we need good quality Apartment blocks to stop urban sprawl (before Lenister is just Dublin suburbs).

Good job that you avoided the elephant in the room, the arrears. There's over 100k mortgages that are not being paid. Those people are holding stock they can't afford thus preventing those who can afford them from buying.
It's called "foreclosure stuffing" and it's (temporarily) messing up the market in parts of the US as well.

sparky42 wrote: »

So I notice that you have avoided any comments regarding any of the Public sector personnel involved in any and all of the issues related to or causing the boom.

Shows your blinked view.

Bit petty of you considering that you have a fairly blinkered (and bullish) view of "what's wrong" with the market yourself.

creedp

sparky42 wrote: »

Exactly human nature is human nature, it happens in all sectors of work, I've made calls about taking a short cut at work to make life easier I'm sure everyone else has as well.

That's certainly a statement that doesn't inspire any confidence in the building industry. Its all very well to say that the building regulators are responsible for ensure standards are met but where is the responsibility on the builder/develper to ensure he builds a high quality product. Has he any responsibility for ensuring his workers actually do what they are supposed to be doing? We may as well throw our hat at it if we need a regulator to ensure that the plasterer doesn't put washing up liquid in his plaster to make his life a bit easier.

How would that attitude work in the pharmaceutical industry, the motor industry? Imagine if Toyota said that problems with their cars weren't their fault really as its the Govt's responsibility to ensure their cars are built to the required standard - so let the Govt foot the bill for fixing them.

sparky42

creedp wrote: »

That's certainly a statement that doesn't inspire any confidence in the building industry. Its all very well to say that the building regulators are responsible for ensure standards are met but where is the responsibility on the builder/develper to ensure he builds a high quality product. Has he any responsibility for ensuring his workers actually do what they are supposed to be doing? We may as well throw our hat at it if we need a regulator to ensure that the plasterer doesn't put washing up liquid in his plaster to make his life a bit easier.

How would that attitude work in the pharmaceutical industry, the motor industry? Imagine if Toyota said that problems with their cars weren't their fault really as its the Govt's responsibility to ensure their cars are built to the required standard - so let the Govt foot the bill for fixing them.

Each area you've mentioned has oversight to hold them to standards, and sometimes those industries also fall down, (see the current issues for GM in the US, or Toyota before that or any of the major drug scandals, or the horse meat issue). We have or should have regulators to combat those very issues. Again the CIF was calling for inspections long before the crash and it was Government/public service that didn't/wouldn't do it. A core issue is that you have unregulated and uncertified builders who have no adherence to any code that can set up shop whenever they want and the Building industry has no control on that. During the boom plenty of people became developers that had never built anything in their lives, but they paid their money to the council in development tax and that was the end of it from the local government side of things.

In an ideal world ever single worker no matter what they were doing would be perfect, but we don't live in an ideal world. That's why there are meant to be checks, inspections, quality control etc.

sparky42

gaius c wrote: »

Good job that you avoided the elephant in the room, the arrears. There's over 100k mortgages that are not being paid. Those people are holding stock they can't afford thus preventing those who can afford them from buying.
It's called "foreclosure stuffing" and it's (temporarily) messing up the market in parts of the US as well.

That is part of it, just as land bank holding is part of it, and lack of construction, old units going out of use, highest average income in the country and increased demand. The Dublin spikes are being driven by many underlying factors, but the reality is that you can't undershot the needed build rate for 5 years and then be somehow surprised that prices are increasing. Some units are in the wrong place or aren't what people want/need at this stage and that is causing the spikes, Dublin needs more housing units, ever CSO study has demonstrated that more people are going to the capital every year and the units that they want aren't there.

Bit petty of you considering that you have a fairly blinkered (and bullish) view of "what's wrong" with the market yourself.

I'm more than willing to admit the wrong doing of people in the private sector in where we are, however I have no intention of agreeing to the view that the Public Sector is the paragon of virtue and has never screwed up, nor that it didn't play its part in the mess we are in.

Whether that's safety officers/engineers signing off of bad plans or developments or senior public servants being in this up to their neck. How about Neary and the other senior members who were at best criminally negligent, at worse criminally complicit in this but walked away with a golden handshake, a top up and a 6 figure pension? Since the crash we've had attempts across Europe to introduce claw backs on bonus for bankers if 4 years down the line their deal breaks the bank, why have I heard nothing from the unions about the same scheme for Public servants? If 4 years later it turns out that you fundamentally failed in your duties you don't get the 100K a year pension? Maybe it's because the Union leadership is on 100K+ and has no intention of making that call?

Farmer Pudsey

creedp wrote: »

That's certainly a statement that doesn't inspire any confidence in the building industry. Its all very well to say that the building regulators are responsible for ensure standards are met but where is the responsibility on the builder/develper to ensure he builds a high quality product. Has he any responsibility for ensuring his workers actually do what they are supposed to be doing? We may as well throw our hat at it if we need a regulator to ensure that the plasterer doesn't put washing up liquid in his plaster to make his life a bit easier.

How would that attitude work in the pharmaceutical industry, the motor industry? Imagine if Toyota said that problems with their cars weren't their fault really as its the Govt's responsibility to ensure their cars are built to the required standard - so let the Govt foot the bill for fixing them.

Building regulations is not just an Irish issue. Turkey found out after an earthquakes what poor regulation in building costs. I think the US did as well. The issue in Ireland is that neither the builders, professional engineers or the local authority's did there job in the case of some apartments. The pharmaceutical industry is strigently regulated. We saw from the food industry when poor regulation and a blind eye is turned what big cooporations will allow. Again thsi was not just an Irish issue.

You only buy a house once or twice in a lifetime you buy a car maybe every 2-5 years depending on you wishes. The reality is that we also had the NHBGS who failed to do there job, collect large levys to those who want to use there gaurantee but failed to monitor there activity. It si one thing that there is an issue with a single dwelling however with apartment blocks I doubt if any country would not check as the developer builds and make sure it is to spec.

chopper6

sparky42 wrote: »

I'm more than willing to admit the wrong doing of people in the private sector in where we are, however I have no intention of agreeing to the view that the Public Sector is the paragon of virtue and has never screwed up, nor that it didn't play its part in the mess we are in.

Whether that's safety officers/engineers signing off of bad plans or developments or senior public servants being in this up to their neck. How about Neary and the other senior members who were at best criminally negligent, at worse criminally complicit in this but walked away with a golden handshake, a top up and a 6 figure pension? Since the crash we've had attempts across Europe to introduce claw backs on bonus for bankers if 4 years down the line their deal breaks the bank, why have I heard nothing from the unions about the same scheme for Public servants? If 4 years later it turns out that you fundamentally failed in your duties you don't get the 100K a year pension? Maybe it's because the Union leadership is on 100K+ and has no intention of making that call?

Sorry but you're gonna need to explain this to me..

sparky42

chopper6 wrote: »

Sorry but you're gonna need to explain this to me..

Really you missed the Anglo trial where it was stated that the Financial Regulator was involved in actions that breached the companies act? You realise that the two found guilty will get a reduced sentence if not get off because of that, while he sits at home getting hundreds of thousands in his pension for fundamentally failing to do his job (at best)

Or the Central Bank executives/directors that "missed" everything and retired before being called before the Daíl committees to answer for it.

Or how about the Department secretaries who on the night of the Guarantee decided that note taking wasn't an important part of it. Or whoever "lost" the phone records of the minister for Finance.

There are plenty that were in senior positions and some that still are that either didn't do their jobs or weren't competent at them but I don't see Jack O'Connor calling for their heads. I don't see Union leaders calling for Neary to be reduced to the state pension instead of what he's on right now (again because their pensions are just as big)

chopper6

sparky42 wrote: »

Really you missed the Anglo trial where it was stated that the Financial Regulator was involved in actions that breached the companies act? You realise that the two found guilty will get a reduced sentence if not get off because of that, while he sits at home getting hundreds of thousands in his pension for fundamentally failing to do his job (at best)

Or the Central Bank executives/directors that "missed" everything and retired before being called before the Daíl committees to answer for it.

Or how about the Department secretaries who on the night of the Guarantee decided that note taking wasn't an important part of it. Or whoever "lost" the phone records of the minister for Finance.

There are plenty that were in senior positions and some that still are that either didn't do their jobs or weren't competent at them but I don't see Jack O'Connor calling for their heads. I don't see Union leaders calling for Neary to be reduced to the state pension instead of what he's on right now (again because their pensions are just as big)

You've gone on about Anglo and the Central Bank...then you mention Jack O'connor :rolleyes: