Softening house market?

There will likely have been the aspect of some people rushing to buy "while we can". i.e. those currently with access to credit who think that a worsening economy will mean that they won't get it in the future.

I think the mortgage squeeze is a big factor and is feeding through- ICS for example only giving 2.5 times salary?

Not to mention the steady rise in rates from where they were. All effects repayment capacity and mortgage qualification levels- people have less money to play with = downward pressure on prices

Yet more viewings where I'm the only person.

One of which was in decent part of south side. Gaff went sale agreed months but fell through. Back on the market 75k below that sale agreed price. Estate agent was saying they'd accept 5k less than that if I was interested. First time I've experienced the hard sell since I started looking. Only one other person had viewed it apparently.

No interest in the place, there's better value in other parts of Dublin. But houses around there were flying off the eh... shelves not so long ago

Not sure if it's the time of year, the amount of stuff currently on the market (is it 20k properties now on daft or my home?) or what. Feels like a sentiment shift. I've been actively looking for over 6 months and the last while fewer and fewer people are at the viewings I've been at.

We're certainly holding off for a while. Going to see how things pan out over the winter and potentially look to buy in Feb or so. I presume many others are doing the same. But if something comes along in the mean time we'll consider it.

The crazy thing is quite a few estate agents have said that September is usually a busy time because folk are trying to get stuff wrapped up before the end of the year. It hasn't been busy at all at the viewings I was at, except for one.

We're happy to wait for the right house in the right location. Many folk don't have that luxury, though.

I think too anything poorly located ie you have to drive to schools/shops is not moving.

If you look at the PPR for 2019, you can see that houses jumped a crazy amount between then and 2021/22. I'm looking at houses that similar were selling for 100k+ less in 2019. There are areas near me where houses were selling for 550k on average in 2019 and now are listing at 670 and up until recently were selling for more. That's not normal and it's not sustainable. A 20-25% jump in price in the space of 2 years is absurd.

When you look at the rate of house price inflation of the preceding 7-8 years it's a steady rise and then a sharp jump in 2021. It's clearly a bubble, at least when it comes to second hand houses.

A ~10% correction would see us (more or less) back to the normal rate of inflation we would have been at had there not been a mini bubble due to 2 years worth of buyers competing for 1 years worth of houses during 2021/22.

The question is, how long will it take for vendors to start getting more realistic with their asking prices. I guess once houses are sitting unsold for a good few months. But it'll be slow to come about, no one wants to give up those kinds of gains.

Here's the first page of All Dublin price changes on myhome as they display for me - 13 shown (not sure of the "Listings 1-20..." description) with 10 out of the 13 being decreases.

Here's one down a quarter mil

I see that Censure House Howth is reduced by €2.5 million. It is reduced from 15 million to 12.5 million.

The difference between now and before is that there isn’t the same pressure on people to sell, in 2012 people were overleveraged and desperate to sell at any cost, we won’t see the same pressures this time around so price decrease will be more gradual imo

I suppose what might happen is not a big drop, just a period of flatlining, until we end up at the same point we would have ended up at if the 2020/2021 spike had never happened. And then prices resume climbing 'normally', whatever that is!

Don't drink the BER rating kool aid. It is a fairly hamfisted way of measuring and can often be improved without huge investment.

Certainly noticed a sharp increase in houses available. Every weekend now I have several that meet my parameters on location, size, price and condition and view them all after the other. Previously you'd be doing well to have one.

At what point does a price drop in the next 6-9 months exceed the additional cost of a rate raise on the mortgage?

say prices drop 10% but the mortgage rate is then much higher than the roughly 2 - 2.5 % I can get now?