Have I chosen the wrong career?

Oh you think it will happen just like that over night? Big ole Flash and the Charities/REITs/Government take over the shop. Loads of people lost their homes in the last recession and will never get on the property ladder again, many were conned into signing over with no fuss. Then there is Taxation, I got a gift sum from a very generous uncle, immediately the bank advised me to pay 30% of it to the taxman and would have taken me out of position of buying the house I wanted and at best would have allowed me to buy a two bedroom apartment in a regional town. Taxation in the West and inflation are out of control. The parallels with Rome are uncanny.

When a Teacher/Nurse/Garda have trouble securing a mortgage, then your society is in trouble. I am not suggesting that everyone should have the ability to buy a home but there are too many people in Ireland struggling to get on the ladder while other parties are getting accommodation for next to nothing or people who do not contribute to society.

The bank advised you correctly on gift/inheritance tax. If you failed to pay associated liability, there is a risk that Revenue may eventually come looking for it and you will be in deep doodoo.

It has always been difficult for middle income earners to buy in expensive property markets like Dublin, this is not a new phenomenon and is not exclusive to Ireland.

While Governments may purchase properties for social housing, this is a tiny percentage of all housing in private ownership, there will never be time when Governments will seize all properties which are privately owned, nor be able to afford universal compulsory purchase. That is just pie in the sky stuff.

Taxation is necessary, without it services such as healthcare would not be possible, yes we have high taxation, a lot of it indirect, such is life.

Disagree with your first paragraph - estate agents benefit greatly from upwards trending property prices. That is undeniable. And while the percentage they would get for a few hundred or a couple of K increase in a property price, if this price influences the price of another in the area or more than one in the area, the income overall increase.

The market is and always has been rife for skull duggery (See posts here or any number of threads on here) or one type or another and if EA's are adament that fake bids and the link don't happen, the should do something a bit stronger than what is in place at the moment on it.

A lot of EA's that I have come across are relatively small operations with each EA usually having a good bit of skin in the game so they see a lot of commission from the sale. I'd expect they are doing well and want to let people know!

The "younger" in the group are probably on a wage with a small commission with perhaps a company car which explains a lot of the motors out there.

Being an EA would be a nightmare for me. You’re under constant pressure to sell and the temptation to tell outright lies must be enormous. I’d manage to keep that smiley face on until the hangovers became unbearable. Three months tops.

You got an estate agent to admit they didnt have a clue? Either you are lying or the young lad had no imagination. In that situation what you do is make up stuff and add in jargon and legalise to really confuse them and made up building regulations. If you look like getting caught, lay down a thick layer of lies and then drive on over it.

The best story I have is being told I was bidding against a doctor on a house priced circa 230k. Why would a doctor be bidding on a €230k house? They only have 2-3 year contracts, if they were buying they should be able to afford a better house than that, I never met a modest doctor. Houses as investments as buy to lets are dead losses with 50% tax.

Told the Estate Agent to get bent and have someone else call me from the office. Then told them I was looking at other houses. You do know you are only allowed bid on one house at a time? The problem was the other auctioneer was gazumping twice as fast as the other guy. If gazumping was a sport Ireland would have the first three placings in the Olympics.

This country is as corrupt as any country in Africa.

Software engineers would enjoy far more respect though than estate agents and auctioneers. The latter are usually at or near the bottom of any survey of the public's on professional honesty and integrity.

That’s not gazumping.

It isn’t, and what makes you so sure there were fake bids? Doctors don’t buy small houses and don’t stay longer than three years is quite a unique reason for suspecting bids are fake.

GDPR? What are you on about?

Well the profession of the bidder wasnt relevant so why did he feel he needed to disclose it? Then when he was asked about it he shut up about it. Assume when you are dealing with a estate agent you are walking into a con.

Disclosing third party information (if there was one to begin with). He was a doctor in the local hospital after all.

Well there arent "thousands" of doctors working in the local hospital, in the second hospital in the county. I would never have guessed that the Estate agent was working in the sellers interest, in other news water is wet. PRSA are never going to investigate properly one of its own. I have never heard of auctioneers investigating one of their own, unlike the law society. What are they going to investigate, a ledger with a fake phone number? There was a woman going around town in Navan last year making fake bids on the claim she was selling her house and possibly not compos mentis. Do you think the local estate agents were clamping down on her? No they were loving her.

I am not going to waste my time making a complaint for his uncle and his buddies at the rugby club to dismiss it.

Not that I know of but but not that I dont know either. None of the names match but that is not to say they all didnt go to the same course. The only reason the PRSA strike off a member is because they are caught out in open ground red handed in the search lights. Michael Lynn was operating like this for years. The only reason he got caught was because he screwed over the banking sector.

If I wanted to I could have gotten him identified through cousins or associates at the time. Only I dont believe the doctor existed in the first place. If the other bidder in the town was teacher civil servant, etc etc, No because I dont professional connections to ask. It just so happens that my cousins are doctors from the town.

Well he was he struck off by the law society, he was a PSRA member, so you would imagine he was also struck off. He was operating for years like that.

I am not so sure I couldnt have found out. Any other profession in the town I would have no chance. So the EA gave out too much information.