Nomenclature of "Cuckoo Funds"

Supercell

Does anyone one know where this weird name for REITs (as they are known everywhere else outside of Ireland from what I can make out) comes from?

Its bizzare and to my mind emotive and judgemental, weird to see the RTE news reporters using language like this, all seems like red top/tabloid style journalism.
I first saw it in the Independant.ie website and it seems to have spread accross Irish media though i havent seen the Irish Times reporters dont use it that I've noticed, really curious if anyone knows its orgin and why Cuckoo??

retalivity

Cuckoo's dont build their own nests, they 'steal' or take over nests built by other birds. Its not a 100% exact comparison to REITs, but think it comes from that

Vestiapx

It's the national broadcaster taking a political stance through its words and choices on what to report. Personally I'd prefer if they were to only use correct language and let the more tabloid style reporters use the rhetorical terms.

MooShop

It is strange, I don't know where the term appeared from. I distinctly remember these funds being labelled as 'vulture funds' a few years ago when they came to prominence.

Is renaming them to cuckoo an attempt at sanitising their image in the press?

Yurt2

Apparently industry lobby groups are pressing hard to have the media call them 'Seahorse Funds'.

Because who doesn't love seahorses after all?

StevenToast

Thats not the preferred nomenclature.....asian american please...

StupidLikeAFox

MooShop wrote: »

It is strange, I don't know where the term appeared from. I distinctly remember these funds being labelled as 'vulture funds' a few years ago when they came to prominence.

The vulture funds were buying up all distressed assets that nobody wanted - feeding off the carcass of the economy. The cuckoo funds are swooping in and buying up houses that were intended for other people - like a cuckoo stealing another birds nest.

Feisar

StevenToast wrote: »

Thats not the preferred nomenclature.....asian american please...

The Chinaman is not the issue.

MooShop

StupidLikeAFox wrote: »

The vulture funds were buying up all distressed assets that nobody wanted - feeding off the carcass of the economy. The cuckoo funds are swooping in and buying up houses that were intended for other people - like a cuckoo stealing another birds nest.

Though the same funds involved!!! ðŸ˜ðŸ˜‚

AngryLips

What's fascinating is that nobody gave a **** that they were buying up all the apartments in the country but, suddenly, they do the same with one housing estate and the whole country goes bat-**** crazy

Supercell

retalivity wrote: »

Cuckoo's dont build their own nests, they 'steal' or take over nests built by other birds. Its not a 100% exact comparison to REITs, but think it comes from that

Aha, that makes sense in a very tabloid kind of way, hardly neutral reporting though is it.
Disappointing, just shows how poor Irish journalism standards are when our own national broadcaster uses terms like this.

Topgear on Dave

Media reporting on property is always full of catchphrases and often fairly poor.

Properties are always always "Snapped up".

New apartments are always "Luxury".

micosoft

The problem is that they are conflating this case in Maynooth with a REIT which is not the case.
Frankly this behaviour by the media is unhelpful. The state literally can't borrow the money to build the housing so other vehicles are needed.

As for Vulture funds. Vultures actually play an important role in ecosystems - getting rid of dead animals and reducing disease spread that way. Much the same "Vulture funds" helped pick off the worst of our banking crisis and helped restore some element of our banking sector. So actually a fair disruption if people really thought it though

The real problem is that housing is a complex multifaceted challenge. The desire to identify one bogeyman to blame everything on is strong when stakeholders like
- mortgage deliquents (and there are a fair few) don't want repossessions,
- property owners (who vote) want the price of their property steady or to go up, Include media and property supplements here.
- some folk think they have a god given right to live within 1km of where they grew up,
- landowners have built in constitutional protections since forever because "the brits evicted us" regardless of irony,
- A large cadre don't want to pay for services or property tax so local authorities cannot pay for creating serviced land other than massive levies passed onto, you've guessed it, new home buyers.

It's a very sad situation for new home buyers and represents some breakdown of the social contract. But just like 2008 instead of blaming "the bankers" despite voting in Bertie three times in a row, perhaps the electorate should have a long look at itself. Unfortunately it's more likely that SF will do well with their populist messaging which the others will be forced to join into and the next Irish crash will be set in motion.

B2021M

It was all 'Generation Rent' with Aine Lawlor the other night....

Yellow_Fern

Cuckoo fund seems to be an Irish term, coined probably 5-10 years ago by an Indo journalist. While the term Vulture fund is used abroad

shtpEdthePlum

It was a different fund, it was a different bird!