Irish Property Market chat II - *read mod note post #1 before posting*

combat14

Google likely to layoff 30,000 employees post new AI innovation

The proposed restructuring is anticipated to primarily impact Google's ad sales department, where the company is exploring the benefits of leveraging AI for operational efficiency.

https://www.cnbctv18.com/education/google-likely-to-layoff-30000-employees-post-new-ai-innovation-18662731.htm

looks like big changes coming to many businesses in the next few years how will workers afford over priced houses with AI replacing jobs

Villa05

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121546231#Comment_121546231

Are you falling into the misconception that FTB are young people with the average age increasing substantially over the years

Are you also noticing that these purchases are further and further away from where they are required, repeating another mistake of the noughties. This is what caused the oversupply issue

DataDude

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121546605#Comment_121546605

The increasing age of FTBers is primarily due to the fact almost nobody was able to buy a home for about a decade from 2007-2014/15. The 40 year olds now who should have been buying 10 years ago had nothing to buy because there was no credit and no building.

We are seeing the delayed impact of that disastrous period now and are trying (struggling badly) to catch up for a lost decade.

For someone seeking more homeownership - yearning for a time of

• no new building

• no financing

• no transactions

during a time when all of those things are trending up (granted we need to touch further) literally makes no sense.

We are seeing the delayed consequences now and people want to go back to the cause of it all just ‘because’. It’s beyond stupid.

On point 2 - no, my observation is planning rules are being fairly rigorously enforced to prevent one off developments (much to some people’s annoyance) and building is now very heavily concentrated in high density, well connected locations.

SharkMX

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121546701#Comment_121546701

People settling down much older now than even a decade or two ago too.

They spend much longer in education and they go off traveling or sowing their wild oats more than people used to do before.

Guilty of it myself. Ive got siblings and a few friends who didnt do what I did after they left school and they all own houses now. None of the group of us who went to Oz and then traveling for 3 years own a house now. Of the ones who stayed behind maybe 50% of them own a house now.

I woudlnt chnage what I did for a minute, it was a great experience, but there is a price i have to pay for it.

Villa05

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121545156#Comment_121545156

Anyone concerned about the health of the Irish economy would recognise the importance of affordable housing with security of tenure (balanced of course with reasonable LL protection) in maintaining it.

In such an environment, the economy grows and landlord/Tennant income grows and state finances are in much better shape.

This will never happen with supply completely controlled by the private sector

Dav010

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121546761#Comment_121546761

And yet our economy has shown an impressive recovery with growth in population and jobs over the last 10 years.

Blut2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121546231#Comment_121546231

"More people than ever are getting on with it and buying their first home."

This is completely statistically incorrect. The rise in FTBs overall has to do with a steep rise in the overall Irish population, per capita the home buying rates are falling precipitously. These figures are from four years ago, and the figures have only gotten much worse since then:

"Research by the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) found that the share of 25-34 year olds who own their own home more than halved between 2004 and 2019, falling from 60 per cent to just 27 per cent.

Lower home ownership rates would mean a higher proportion of households in the rental sector and “the continuation of rental payments into retirement”, the report says. Reductions in home ownership of this magnitude would also raise the proportion of older people (aged 65-plus) living in income poverty, from 14 per cent at present to as high as 31 per cent."[1]

The figures are very clear - FTBs are becoming much older, and much rarer.

A society where a large percentage of people are going to reach retirement without owning their own home is just financially non viable, its not possible to pay private sector rent on a pension. This is going to be an absolutely huge issue for the Irish state in 20-30 years.

The state either builds large scale housing now, or we're going to be building very large scale retirement housing then.

[1]https://www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/2022/07/06/falling-home-ownership-rates-will-leave-future-retirees-financially-exposed-study-finds/

Villa05

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121546846#Comment_121546846

Driven in no small part by the correction in property prices, the mistake is to prioritise speculation over sustainable growth as has been the policy for this growth. This leaves us very vulnerable heading into the next recession

SharkMX

My biggest fear tbh at the moment is getting a mortgage before i am too old to get a reasonable length mortgage and then end up renting when im retired.

When im retired i wont be able to afford rent. I wont get a house provided for me by the state. Or if i do i'll be on a waiting lit til 90 years of age.

Rents will be sky high because there will be no landlords left by then, even reits.

fartooreasonable

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121546846#Comment_121546846

Past performance does not guarantee future results.

Ireland is facing numerous serious structural and demographic challenges and resting on the laurels of the past may not be sufficient to grow further. It seems you may be trying to ignore certain figures to fit a pre conceived conclusion.

DataDude

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121546866#Comment_121546866

Absolute nonsense - population has increased by 11% (4.5m to 5m) since records on FTBers began in 2014. Number of first time buyers over the same period are up 120%. (16k to 34k)

Population has crept up. FTBer numbers have exploded.

I should have more accurately stated that more people are getting on with it than at any point in last 15 years/records. Of course a higher percentage were buying in Celtic tiger period and prior.

Things are bad but they’re the best they’ve been in a long long time.

RichardAnd

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121546540#Comment_121546540

This is something we'll be seeing more of. If you do a job that requires sitting at a desk with a computer, even skilled jobs, there is a good chance that an AI can and will do the job in the near future.

Villa05

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121546701#Comment_121546701

The increasing age of FTBers is primarily due to the fact almost nobody was able to buy a home for about a decade from 2007-2014/15. The 40 year olds now who should have been buying 10 years ago had nothing to buy because there was no credit and no building.

The 100% mortgages from 05 to 08 had a huge part to play as executable demand of the future was brought forward

Today, we have shared ownership where upto 40% of the price is underwritten or paid by the state. What is this doing to executable demand, land and housing values and how sustainable is it?

Rigorous enforcement are not something I expected to see in the same sentence about the Irish Planning System

DataDude

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121546953#Comment_121546953

“ONE YEAR ON from the launch of the Government’s shared equity First Home Scheme, just 474 homes have been delivered to date.”

In a year when 36k first time buyers will buy homes. It’s fair to say the shared equity scheme is a statistical relevance at this stage. I agree it was a terrible scheme by the way - but it’s not impacting current demand in any meaningful way.

On Irish planning. Incompetent, slow, corrupt etc. could all be thrown at them. But as someone who tried to get planning for a large one off house - I can confidently say they are anything but easy. We are definitely not replicating past mistakes of allowing ludicrously levels of sprawl.

Blut2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121546940#Comment_121546940

I posted and cited the relevant statistic. Home ownership rates for young people have worse than halved - from 60% in 2004 to 27% in 2019. And continued falling since.

"Things are the best they've been in a long long time" is just completely false. The rate of home ownership amongst young people is the worst its been in the history of the Irish state, and this is going to have an absolutely huge impact on the state long term.

RichardAnd

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121547023#Comment_121547023

Don't forget, the would-be FTB generation (i.e., people in their 30s now) was the same generation that came into the work-force during the crash. A lot of this generation would have suffered employment scarring or depressed wages that would only have recovered in recent years.

The old express of "pulling the ladder up" comes to mind.

Blut2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121547052#Comment_121547052

The 18-34 home ownership rate statistic is also key because of how it becomes significantly more difficult to get a mortgage as you age past 35. A 40, or 45 year old, isn't getting a 'full' 35 year mortgage - they'll only get shorter mortgages, of lower amounts. So their options are ever more limited as they age, even if their salary is ticking up.

J_1980

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121547023#Comment_121547023

18-30yo home ownership is totally uncommon in all EU countries.

celtic tiger home ownership ages were the exception (not the current situation ).

Timing belt

2024 house prices poll open

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058328750/house-price-predictions-for-2024

Former Former Former

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121547052#Comment_121547052

This is your perspective though. You’re very angry because you feel that your cohort is uniquely disadvantaged. It’s not.

The previous generation of FTBs (myself included) lost huge sums of money in the property crash and spent a decade climbing out of negative equity. You dodged a massive bullet and you’re still bitching.

EVERYONE saw wage cuts and huge tax increases. Not everyone had to worry about providing for a family on a massively reduced income. You certainly didn’t.

People approaching retirement saw huge sums wiped off their pensions and either had to keep working or take a much less comfortable retirement.

There’s no ladder being pulled up here. Just an insatiable need to blame others and not take any responsibility yourselves.

Blut2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121547116#Comment_121547116

You're wrong on literally everything there.

The statistic I quoted is 18-34 years old.

Ireland in 2019 had the 10th lowest home ownership rate in Europe.

Home ownership rates in 2004 were below home ownership rates in 1991, Celtic Tiger rates absolutely weren't the peak (or an "exception") in Ireland.

RichardAnd

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121547129#Comment_121547129

Pointing out that one group has a problem does not in any way mitigate the problems of other groups. This is like telling someone whose house is on fire to not worry so much because yours was flooded.

SharkMX

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121547205#Comment_121547205

I think the issue is that people are settling down and buying much later than they used to anyway. All of the parts add up to it being hard for FTBs like myself. If I could go back and reason out whether I should prioritize buying a house, or staying in uni til 25 and then going traveling and not getting into the workforce til the back half of my 20s, what would I do. Not sure. But I know that what I did in my 20s was not what the people who are buying houses younger than me were doing. Its my own fault im starting late, and i cant really blame anyone else for it.

DataDude

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121547023#Comment_121547023

You’re confusing the short term and the long term and drawing the incorrect conclusions.

Home ownership rates in a total population are a function of purchases over many many decades not something that is fixed or broken at a singular point in time. The period from 08-2017 was disastrous for home ownership.

2023 was the best year for first time buyer numbers since 2007. That is a fact. 2022 was the second best year since 2007. That is a fact.

Home ownership rates can continue to decline despite the improving trends as the long term nature of how the rate moves means current FTB rates are essentially changing the mix relative to a previous generation who had close to 100% ownership rate.

Unfortunately understanding this dynamic requires a somewhat reasonable grasp of statistics which based on your previous posting, I suspect will be beyond you.

Timing belt

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121547172#Comment_121547172

If you’re Going back to 1991 then you need remember that it was common to enter the workforce at 16 years or just after leaving cert. What age would those same people be entering the workforce now ? Also back then there was forced high emigration which also would impact stats.

SharkMX

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121547257#Comment_121547257

In 1991 it was common to be buying in one salary also and you were less likely to be competing with a double income couple or charities and councils. Not the same conditions these days for sure.

Leave school later, sow your wild oats, Get a much higher deposit together when you do get a job, couple up to have any chance at all of buying. And then compete against councils and reits.

So we have a choice now. Knuckle down, save like mad and get it done, or spend our money on something else and complain. Only one of those options has any sort of chance of buying a house.

Blut2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121547244#Comment_121547244

The number of people aged 18-34 who live in a property they own has gone from 60% in 2004 to 27% in 2019. Thats a catastrophic decline, with a verifiably greatly reduced quality of life for hundreds of thousands of people. And one with dire implications for the Irish state in 20-30 years time.

A small increase in outright FTB purchases year to year that you're clinging to, in a country with a population increasing by 100k a year, doesn't compensate for this massive decline.

You can try and spin that any way you want, but those are verifiable, hard, statistics. The statement that "Things are the best they've been in a long long time" as you've made is just laughable. This is verifiably, in late 2023, the worst housing crisis in the modern history of the Irish state.

combat14

the problem with more and more in many case single older FTBs is that when you hit your 40s you are looking at 15 to 20 year mortgages rather than 30 year ones severely depressing what these increasing cohort of buyers can afford ..

SharkMX

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121547353#Comment_121547353

Thats why im kicking myself for not entering the workforce until the wrong end of my 20's. I had a good time, but its going to work out expensive in the end. All my friends who got jobs and settled down in their early 20s all have somewhere to live now for their old age. I'll be in my 60s before my mortgage is paid off. No more work breaks for me :)

RichardAnd

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121547234#Comment_121547234

Same here. I could have used my 20s better, but let's not commit the avocado toast fallacy here. The primary reason for difficulties with housing for our generation is because of what the state (and a sizable proportion of the population) has done.