Softening house market?

If those houses do get built, rates go high enough and there are no new starts to buy them then prices should drop for everyone else looking to buy. Positive outcome. Problem is in this country you have REITs still not banned and buying, councils buying instead of building social housing, government (sorry I mean the completely independent central bank) allowing higher multiples of income for mortgages. Pure interference and manipulation.

"You can live your life seeing problems and wondering about what ifs"

Subjective. Hasn't been my experience when it comes to big purchases but it's fair comment.

Last crash most Irish builders moved to Australia. This time around, Australia seems to be in a housing bubble too and so is most of the western countries. Where will they go ?

Middle East is a good option, until you realise the **** conditions and pay if you were working in a building site.

Viewed a property a few hours before the CBI announced the change in rules last week. 3 viewers including myself. One other bidder and myself from it and the other person dropped out quickly. Agent had said they would have one more viewing but said vendor was happy with offer and I kept an eye on the listing and activity seemed to have dried up.

They had the viewing this week and don’t know how many viewed it, but THREE new bidders came from it. Bidding got silly on it and had to drop out.

I’m wondering if people are already now factoring in that they’ll get a higher mortgage amount, even though it’s not coming in until January?!

Maybe you should have told the estate agent that if he wanted to hold an auction he should do so, otherwise your offer was your offer.

Getting into a situation where the agent tells you "a better offer has come in" was always my cue to tell the EA he knew what my offer was and the house was worth no more to me today than it had been yesterday.

It's not that doesn't matter.

But it's a gamble. You're ability to pay a mortgage will depend on how your career or job goes. Who can predict that. Or how life works out.

I agree its always a gamble whether you can/can't make it to the end of a mortgage.

Do you agree it's more of a gamble if the amount you need to borrow is higher?

Agree totally with this. I don't understand the mentality at all that says it doesn't matter what price you pay for your house if you aren't going to sell it.

Hypothetically lets say Person A and Person B have the same salary and net worth. If person A buys their forever home at the top of the market, and a year or two later person B buys their identical forever home next door a couple of years later for 25% less. For the next 23 years of their life, Person A is spending 25% more on their mortgage than Person B and has to compensate with fewer family holidays, less socialising, a cheaper car, less money to spend on anything else that matters to them. Or alternatively, rather than taking the cheaper mortgage Person B could have bought a much larger or better located house for the same amount instead. How on earth can people conclude that none of that is important, and that they wouldn't choose to be Person B if they could?

None of us have a crystal ball of course, we don't know if we really are at the top of the market nor do we all necessarily have the luxury of waiting due to other pressures like renting. But it absolutely makes a massive difference what you pay, regardless of if you ever sell the house or not.

Then it comes down to who decides how risky a loan people can get.

If you want avoid a boom and bust cycle.

But what's the point in speculating?

Let's say person B is WAITING for that 25% drop, rather than just blind chance.

2018 was apparently the top of the market.

So was 2019.

Things were meant to go tits up in 2020 and didn't.

Worse in 2021.

Here we are in 2022 and on the one hand people say it's the top, on the other the central bank just put another 50k into the pocket of your average couple.

So Person A is now 70k into their mortgage after 5 years.

Person B has spent 70k on rent for a sh*tty apartment for 5 years. Prices have gone up 20%. They can't get a 35 year mortgage because they are 37 years old. They are in a WORSE position than if they just bought in 2018 instead of trying to time the market.

Time in the market is better than timing the market.

You should be buying a property because you need it long term.

I don't see how that disagrees with what I said.

Property is long term. If you're buying to flip or trade up, it's a different mindset.

Buying to save rent is valid to a point. If you are renting it's possible you're not ready to be tied to fixed location for a long time.

Bertie and his govt were asleep at the wheel. They just copied everywhere else (or did nothing) and got sucked into the same problems.

However they are not immune to energy costs and diesel in particular either.

I cannot see labour costs falling in Dublin. 50%+ of construction workers commute in a devout of Dublin. That has a time and travel cost effect. The extra cost of fuel and general maintenance costs has probably added 100/week to these workers costs on average. But averages can decide, many are travelling 80-100 miles each way per day. This is not in card doing 50+mpg but in fuel hungry van and small pickup trucks.

I can see prices getting more competitive in the commuter towns into Dublin but in Dublin itself I can see construction slowing to a minimum. There is no option of staying in Dublin either as the cost of this now exceeds even present transport costs.

I can see costs fall outside of Dublin but in Dublin I can see construction stall completely. There is evidence already of no new projects starting and no prep work for new build's taking place.

One of the last. ? Why ?

Maybe I'm not understanding you. Your saying Ireland would be last to go into a recession because of tech companies who are currently stock wise doing badly..