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

not too many people posting that at all from what i have seen,

there tends to be 2 types of poster in these threads, the ones that constantly post any scrap of bad news they can find, however tangential it is to irish property and proclaim the end is coming, a massive crash is around the corner, etc etc and there are others (i would count myself among them) that could see some softening of prices, probably single digits, but nothing more than that because of the demand that is still out there.

the same doom mongers (with a varying array of usernames) have been posting the same stuff for years now, of course its possible one day they may be correct, but a single month 0.6% decrease isnt it.

The first decrease is the turning point. Prices will fall from now on. There will be no more rises until the next bubble.

If you think that prices can fall slightly, and then go back to rising, then that’s a sign of economic illiteracy.

As another poster says here every few weeks: it’s doesn’t mean hooray cheap houses for all, it means that for a significant cohort, they can no longer buy due to rate rises and as such, will not be buying.

Look again at the chart posted, 4 months in a row of prices going down in Dublin.

one of us is economically illiterate and it isn't me it seems.

Do you think that interest rate rises are done in Europe? Surely the ECB still want to curb inflation.

Sorry I thought you were referring to the table on a previous page which shows prices in Dublin dropping 4 months in a row.

Gold is good for you?, seems high at €1825 per ounce. How long would you plan to hold on to it and would you be concerned at the potential loss if you need to sell?

Gold is almost as high as it has been at any time over the past 3 years during a global pandemic and war. If you expect a crisis, cash is often useful, not many shops accept gold if you need to buy goods.

That gold has gone up as inflation has gone up is why it is considered a store of value. Its traditionally an inflation hedge - though its arguable how good or consistent.

Its not liquid as you say, and gold dealers will try to screw you on the resale.

It won't produce spectacular returns or outperform markets normally. Its just good at holding its value.

No. But the expectation of interest rate rises is significantly more important to financial markets than actual interest rate rises. And the financial markets are now convinced the ECB won’t be raising rates as much as they previously feared. Institutional investors etc. are much more dependent on forward looking yields (driven by expectations) not actual rate increases.

The only caveat to this is Irish banks have been very slow to pass on rate increases for specific competition reasons and high deposits.

Mortgage Rates should have been at 4/5% well over a year ago as they were across lots of europe and our non-bank lenders. In most markets that would be very significant for house prices. In Ireland our tight LTI limits have capped residential demand, artificially (and rightly) keeping a lid on houses prices.

So the only question remains, will banks pull back lending when they finally get their rates to their terminal point (which is now lower than it was expected to be a week ago). The evidence so far suggests absolutely not as average approval amounts jumped considerably in January despite rising mortgage rates.

FTBs might be sad that their repayments will be higher but ultimately they’ll still borrow what the banks will give them as it’ll be cheaper than the ludicrous rent they’re paying.

Who knows, maybe house prices might plummet this year, but it’s far from certain. You also must recognise that you’re constantly battling against the upward forces of inflation which are incredibly strong right now. House prices will be higher than they are today in 20 years time. That is almost a certainty. Sharp short term movements are a guessing game.

You'd have to admit, there is a better than average chance that they are right.

I'm not recommending it as such but I see the appeal.

Apparently when Argentina collapsed around 1998-2002 gold jewellery was in big demand.

The start of what?

You seem quite sure, what kind of drops are you expecting in percentage terms?

House prices are about 40 percent higher than when people started with this correction around the corner talk, you'd expect a slow down at some point but anyone that held off 4 or 5 years ago will be pretty unhappy id have thought

I rang the council a few weeks ago and told them I have a house for sale and would be interested in selling to them to avoid the hassle of an open market sale etc. They told me their policy is only to buy houses with tenants in place. Surely buying a house and getting a social tenant is the same thing!

I bought my gold and silver years ago, but I would still deem it to be a good means of protecting money. If you buy gold, you're in it for the long haul, and I mean decades. It's not going to make you rich, but I'd rather have an ounce of gold than a load of cash in the bank.

By the way, gold has jumped 100 euro in the last seven days. That doesn't bode well for global financial stability...