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

I really don’t know what point you are trying to make, but legally, NAMA selling a loan book to a foreign investor most certainly did not transfer ownership to that investor, it transferred the loans only, not title to the properties.

How many properties were repossessed? Did all the loans on that book result in repossessions? Of course not, therefore title did not pass to the investor.

You appear not to understand what you shared.

If you say so

Here's one summary of where the assets of some of the biggest developers ended up through either sales or refinancing:

Given the concentration of property development amongst a small number of developers it's certainly not a small % of assets that changed into foreign owners hands.

Couple from many examples:

Or

https://eu.kennedywilson.com/press-releases/eu450m-acquisition-gardner-house-through-non-performing-loans

Kennedy Wilson Europe Real Estate Plc, an LSE listed property company (LSE: KWE) that invests in direct real estate and real estate loans in Europe, announces that it has completed the acquisition of Gardner House, Wilton Place, Dublin 2, previously held as two loans secured by a first ranking mortgage. 

More first time buyers bought homes this year then at any period over the last 15 years, and more Irish people are coming back to Ireland than are leaving even though the cost of buying is high. Are these people who moved abroad to make money before returning home when they could afford to like so many of us did? Or are they people who are returning home so that they can live with their parents/compete for the few rental properties available, if the latter, then they should not be whinging about not being able to buy a house.

https://m.independent.ie/news/you-know-youre-not-going-to-find-that-rents-are-lower-in-new-york-tanaiste-leo-varadkar-42158794.html

From reading Villa05’s post that you quoted, I don’t want anyone to have to move abroad, but neither do I want to read about the constant demands for others to help them. If they do emigrate, it will take some of the pressure off the demand for houses and hopefully mean that prices will drop as demand decreases. Previously people emigrated for jobs, with full employment that obviously is not necessary so today, we have full employment and many well paid jobs, if you can’t afford to buy, then you do what others did before you and look elsewhere. Teachers, nurses, builders etc have been doing it for decades, why do people think it should be different today?

@kaymin

My take on it was political pressure to get people out of negative equity. Whenever I hear the argument about construction being unprofitable I always wonder what the actual cost breakdown is...

I wouldn't dismiss that reason entirely but then FG were not under much political pressure during those times. FF had no standing. Getting the banks up and operating normally seemed to be the priority. Here's one viewpoint on the reasoning:

https://www.thejournal.ie/readme/michael-noonan-house-prices-damien-kiberd-1410085-Apr2014/

You speak as if mass emigration is normal, it's usually a sign of dysfunction. Ireland has thrived in most markets that have opened up to competition as a result of the evolution of the EU. It's those sectors that are protected from competition or fully controlled by the state that are a drag on our economy.

Ireland is still one of the most underdeveloped nations in the EU. Housing if properly managed should be the least of our concerns and by right should be a source of further competitive advantage given our abundance of under developed land.

Notable article on Bloomberg regarding twitter noting our housing situation made it easier for twitter workers to throw in the towel and quit. How much damage do we let the housing sector do to the economy before we act

You mentioned stuttgart, for a so called second class city in Germany it is so impressive, underground's and trams everywhere, 20 mins train journey direct to the city from the airport. Dublin hasn't a patch on it, it actually sickens me when Varadkar tries to put Dublin in the same brackets as New York or Sydney. Varadkar needs to go, Coveney very suspect given his links to ABP corrupt heavies. It's a sad state we are in, as Tonesjones said so eloquently, Ireland is the friend on paper with a great job and doing very well but come the end of the months has nothing left

Yep and international quality of life metrics do put Dublin in a fairly respectable position, ahead of New York for example, and ahead of every single American and British city for that matter. Manchester unsurprisingly isn't anywhere near the top 200 and it's laughable to try and compare it to Dublin. There are a fair few central European cities and a couple in Australia ahead of us but I mean "not quite the absolute highest quality of life in the entire world" isn't exactly a disastrous ranking, when you think how far Ireland has come from 50 years ago or more.

I agree with you 100%. Dublin used to be a really nice city until not too long ago. Its a horror show now. Ive been in the city center almost every day for the last 30 years, even lived there for about 5 years. Its a horrible place now. If I didnt work in the city center I dont think I would ever visit it again. Its also an embarrassment when friends and colleagues visit from abroad and give their honest opinion on what they think of the city center.

Naive, is thinking that the problem is going to be solved easily or soon, and that constantly complaining about it is going to improve your lot.

No one thinks it is “fine”, it is far from fine, I’m not sure why you think a LL would have more, or less insight into the housing crisis than anyone else.

Traditionally if people could not find a job in an area they wanted, they looked elsewhere, but if you say that now about housing, you are “naive”, go figure.

Traditionally, jobs that an area needed paid enough that workers could live relatively close to where they work. That is no longer the case.

Dublin is facing an unprecedented shortage of teachers due to a cost of living thats far too high in the capital. At what point do we recognise that house price inflation is crippling the economy at large?

Hows this for tradition.

Stop looking at the past. Ireland has never been here before and an acute lack of affordable housing options, either renting or buying, is creating a dysfunctional society.

If people are forced to look elsewhere, then who is going to do the jobs required to keep society functioning like teachers, nurses, gards, childcare, cleaners, retail.

Who is rewriting history? You seem to be completely ignoring the current state of affairs and hand-waving it away as normal "shur we had hard times in the past"

We never had such a drastic crisis in teacher recruitment, gardai recruitment in the greater dublin area. Things have never been this bad. The cost of living (incl housing) has just gotten so high that plenty of essential jobs just arent viable in the greater dublin area anymore. Grand if youre making 80-100k in Google or Meta, not so grand if you're on a graduate teaching salary or on lower end of garda payscale. You can barely rent on those salaries anymore - which is why people are voting with their feet and moving out of Dublin. The rest of the country isnt struggling nearly as much for recruitment of these roles than Dublin, Kildare, Wicklow are.

Ultimately this means that housing situation makes Dublin even more dysfunctional, while the rest of the country with more reasonable housing costs can continue to function. The GDAs loss I suppose. Will funny to see people like yourself in 5 years time blaming the teacher and gardai staffing crises on people choosing not to live in Dublin and surrounds. 🤣 ("Why are teachers doing as I suggested 5 years ago and moving somewhere they can afford? How selfish!")