Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie

Is the housing market transitioning to a sellers market?

Options
  • 31-03-2023 8:24am
    #1
    Registered Users Posts: 4


    With the hike in rates, the banking crisis, the early stages of layoffs etc... Is the housing sale market starting to change? are bidding wars less numerous than before or even houses selling for asking price?



«1

Comments

  • Registered Users Posts: 590 ✭✭✭mykrodot


    surely you mean "transitioning to a buyers market"?

    If bidding wars are less numerous this is to the buyers advantage............. there is less competition and prices are not as inflated?

    Post edited by mykrodot on


  • Registered Users Posts: 5,116 ✭✭✭Padre_Pio


    "Asking price" is just some number the seller and the estate agent thought of. It has no bearing on whether a house is good value for money.

    I don't think people will be getting value for money.

    Also remember that your interest rate factors into value for money also.



  • Registered Users Posts: 3,644 ✭✭✭RichardAnd


    It's already the best sellers' market that one could hope for :D

    Assuming that you mean that the market is starting to favour buyers, then I would say not yet. Bidding wars seems to have calmed down, but a fine house in a good area will still likely sell for over the asking price.



  • Posts: 0 [Deleted User]


    I think it depends at what end of the market you are looking at, there is still a lot of demand for houses at the more affordable end of the scale.



  • Registered Users Posts: 34,799 ✭✭✭✭o1s1n
    Master of the Universe


    Seems to be the way alright. Will building and renovation costs still being through the roof, anything turnkey or that looks like a show house is still going for over asking from what I've seen.



  • Advertisement
  • Registered Users Posts: 1,786 ✭✭✭DownByTheGarden


    Nice detached houses are still going up as far as i can see. Its the millionaire market and the houses that needs lots of renovation that seems to be definitly be effected, to me.

    You just cant get builders so renovations and even new build costs are still going up.



  • Registered Users Posts: 1,196 ✭✭✭herbalplants


    Building costs are very expensive so people who don't factor this in their asking price are nuts.

    Living the life



  • Registered Users Posts: 8,369 ✭✭✭Ray Palmer


    Just made up is a big stretch. They examine and have knowledge of sale prices in the area along with what people buying are looking for. What is worth value to you doesn't determine the value to others. Value is relative and market value can be wildly different to factors that are of no concern of your. Extra big garden can be seen as a hassle to one, a benefit to another while been seen as development land by another. Most agent of anything add little value but they may very well understand value much better.



  • Registered Users Posts: 3,644 ✭✭✭RichardAnd


    Also, it's worth remembering that what happened in 2008 was fundamentally different to what we have today. The crash was caused by a massive over-supply of housing and a sudden paucity of credit. That's not at all what's happening today. We have a massive shortage of housing and the country is utterly awash with cash.



  • Registered Users Posts: 1,273 ✭✭✭The Spider


    This exactly this, I’ve seen six couples ( yes 6) get burned by thinking the market was going to behave the same way it did last time, they sold up because they thought they were at the top expecting a drop, it hasn’t happened and now they’re stuck paying astronomical rent way above what their mortgages were and are eating into the money they made, they’re now facing the prospect of moving a good bit further out, and taking kids out of school etc.

    Last crash had major over supply we really don’t have that now, and realistically the market can’t crash with a shortage of housing, rising interest rates are eventually going to lead to higher wages, it’s what happened in the 70’s and the 90’s, average wage drastically rose, article below from 1997 makes interesting reading, where they compare wages from the 60’s to the 90,s where they thought a good wage in 1997 was 20 grand and you could buy a house on Dundrum for 180 grand.

    https://www.irishtimes.com/news/you-have-had-it-so-good-in-1967-1.24919

    Post edited by The Spider on


  • Advertisement
  • Registered Users Posts: 1,786 ✭✭✭DownByTheGarden


    Know someone who did that back in 2005. Turns out they were right to sell then. But they are moaning now about the rent they have to pay. After they sold and were right in 2005, they never bought a house again. Always thought there was another crash coming in a couple of years.



  • Registered Users Posts: 1,076 ✭✭✭JohnnyChimpo


    You know 6 separate couples that tried to time the market and sell up in favour of renting? In this current rental market? Did you all meet in some support group for financial illiteracy or something? Anyway, it's hard to have much sympathy



  • Registered Users Posts: 1,273 ✭✭✭The Spider


    Nah the wife knew one couple who said it to me, then I met another couple at the kids school who’d done it, then the in-laws said other neighbours were trying the same thing and so on.

    I should’ve said ‘I know of’ 🤔



  • Registered Users Posts: 3,644 ✭✭✭RichardAnd


    They sold up and moved to rental accommodation hoping to time the market? The financial natural selection at work right there!



  • Registered Users Posts: 1,076 ✭✭✭JohnnyChimpo


    sheer madness. I feel so lucky to have bought a place while it was still manageable, this kind of behaviour just feels like hubris



  • Registered Users Posts: 8,369 ✭✭✭Ray Palmer


    Fundamentals are at play. Not enough properties for sale for the demand. Lots of people laughed about negative equity and said they would buy and the lowest point. They didn't and forced to continuing to rent now. Market hesitation is a thing people mess up a lot based on not correctly attributing causes to market changes and making the wrong assumptions. Some debates are just wishful thinking and looking for positive reinforcement.

    If prices drop people will stop selling. Can't see demand dropping as mostly the government has said they will buy anything.



  • Registered Users Posts: 1,273 ✭✭✭The Spider


    Yup, and one couple began renting a house 3 doors down from the house they sold, the mind boggles absolute insanity, but I still hear people talking, saying we’re due a crash, people who don’t have houses obviously, not taking into account that this is a different situation to 2008



  • Registered Users Posts: 1,578 ✭✭✭JDD


    For the property market to come down we need two major things to happen:

    1. FF to go into coalition with SF. Clearly FG won't. And if FF stay with FG (as seems to be likely) there will be no social housing built. The government will continue to try to incentivise private builders to build housing, but that will fail because of the cost of builders wages and materials, and the consequent hoarding of land.
    2. The Russian/Ukraine war to end. Once it ends, the cost of energy will go down. That will mean the cost of building materials will go down. The cost of energy going down should bring down inflation, which will have a knock on effect on wage increases, including builders wages. In summary, the Russian war ending should mean it is cheaper to build a house, and private builders will be incentivised to use that hoarded land. It will also mean that a certain cohort of second-house buyers will stay and renovate, rather than buy another house, thus reducing the buyer numbers.

    Factor 2 is going to have limited effect unless we vastly increase our building of social houses. If we don't, and continue to subsidise renting from private landlords, that is going to continue to incentivise institutional landlords buying up large numbers of Buy-to-Let units, thus decreasing the already dwindling supply.

    So, there you go. The Russian war needs to end, which we have no control over and does not look likely. And we need a left-of-centre government who have no political concerns regarding social housing and will be tougher on land hoarding. But that does not look likely for another ten years.

    Buy your house now. There's little chance of a crash coming. Even a recession caused by the dot.com slump or another banking crisis would not take enough buyers out of the market to help prices to stabilise. I know that sounds like an idiot from 2007 talking, but I just can't see how the broken property system is going to be fixed by the current government. And I don't see another government coming. SF will never get such a majority that they'll beat the FG/FF combo.



  • Registered Users Posts: 3,644 ✭✭✭RichardAnd


    That's a bit like how people sometimes say that footballers are due an injury!

    A crash will happen eventually, but there are too many factors at work to accurately time it.



  • Registered Users Posts: 8,369 ✭✭✭Ray Palmer


    I don't think FF/FG are not going to build social. The belief the government can build social housing as they used to to solve the current crisis is the issue. Different rules on finances are about now as is the knowledge of social housing costs both financial and social. Adding social housing to the the accounts is a liability.

    SF have no valid plan to consider. No matter what they can't do what they are claiming. They are relying on the ignorance of voters mixed with anger for failed populist decisions.

    I am disgusted with all parties for playing politics rather than working together on a solution.



  • Advertisement
  • Registered Users Posts: 1,273 ✭✭✭The Spider


    Agreed nothing goes up forever, but by the time a crash does happen inflation may have done it’s work and raised prices across the board, the big one is wages if wages start to increase in any meaningful way so will property prices, and a crash may bring them down but not to a level people expect.



  • Registered Users Posts: 7,449 ✭✭✭fliball123


    Eh prices dropped in the first quarter this year and with more rate rises, more layoffs and inflation still in play I can see affordability really eating into demand



  • Registered Users Posts: 1,786 ✭✭✭DownByTheGarden


    I know someone who sold to one of his tenants. Nothing changed in the house. He stayed and paid rent and the tenant stayed and became the owner. It stayed that way til one of them got married a few years later. Nothing to do with property prices, but your post reminded me of that.



  • Registered Users Posts: 29,226 ✭✭✭✭Wanderer78


    ..........

    Post edited by Wanderer78 on


  • Registered Users Posts: 29,226 ✭✭✭✭Wanderer78


    ...or is it becoming a nobodies market!



  • Registered Users Posts: 1,578 ✭✭✭JDD


    Firstly, on the social aspect of social housing. I think any government can learn from mistakes of the past, and not build vast tracts of social housing on greenfield sites with little or no amenities, little or no policing, little or no transport links and little or no local employment opportunities. There has to be joined up thinking now, something Ireland is not fantastic at unless it is to with attracting foreign tech companies. So I am not suggesting that they build social houses like they did in the past. Nor do I think it is the only way to fix the housing problem, but it would certainly be starting at the start.

    I agree, financially it is more expensive now to build a house (social or otherwise) which is why I mentioned that we need inflation to reduce. As to accounting arrangements for social housing, I do not pretend to understand that. Forgive my simplistic notions of these things, but we do appear to have a larger than normal taxation surplus. If the cost of social housing brings down that surplus, as it must be accounted for as a liability, that - from an accounting perspective - is not necessarily a bad thing. Notwithstanding that it would actually the morally right thing to do with windfall taxes from the tech and pharma companies.

    I can't argue in favour or against SF. I haven't taken much of a close look at their policies, as I don't intend to vote for them. I agree that they are a populist party - but then all the parties are. Some are just better at hiding it. FG have made consistent promises regarding the number of houses that will be built (including social houses) over the past ten years, and they have consistently not met those targets. It's not like the promised numbers were even enough to stabilise the supply in the first place. You can only say at this point that this was a deliberate decision on their part. I am no longer fobbed off with explanations of incompetence, because that alludes to the possibility that they can get right. They can't, because they don't want to. They have no issue with a certain class/generation becoming beholden to the rental market, as their voters do not rent, and a number of the government TDs are landlords. Their only issue is with first time buyers in their 30's - a natural stomping ground for both FG/FF voters - but as we have seen the underlying causes of the unnaturally high prices are complex so people don't make a straight line between being outbid for the fourth time and their voting paper.



  • Registered Users Posts: 1,786 ✭✭✭DownByTheGarden


    Prices dont go down when the inflation rate goes down. They just dont increase as fast.



  • Registered Users Posts: 8,369 ✭✭✭Ray Palmer


    All the differences in providing social now compared to the past takes more money. The argument of no amenities is way over blown. It was a cultural issue of poor, uneducated, low employment prospects etc... I grew up in a private estate but close to social housing estates. All the sports facilities were in/by the council estates. We weren't smashing cars into them and burning them down. It was the locals.

    The shops in these areas were built like bunkers. Nobody took care of the properties they lived. Keeping common areas clean was seen as something snobs did. There is a huge cultural issue way beyond being bored. All international studies show you don't put large people with social issues together because they will create deprived areas. It is more than money but social pressure that causes the issues. If bettering yourself is seen as bad then many won't do it and people will try to drag you down.

    We simply can't fun how they once were and take on the liability without major long term financial consequences

    You have brought up TDs being landlords in a way you are saying that they are looking after themselves. Nobody has ever been able to explain the advantages given as you can't use rising property prices as the reward because that only works if they are selling and they aren't. So you are left with explaining what laws and charges brought in have favoured small landlords. I have seen only one thing being reinstated that would classify in any shape or form. After that everything in the last 15 years to me as been punitive.



  • Registered Users Posts: 10,966 ✭✭✭✭Furze99


    Some people might put off selling, but others will need to sell, as always - for one reason another. And it depends on if and how long selling prices are dropping. Even those holding on will decide at some stage to take what they can get. If they are selling and moving, their new property should also have fallen. Doesn't a lot depend on sentiment at the end of the day. Sentiment is often not logical.



  • Advertisement
  • Registered Users Posts: 752 ✭✭✭dontmindme


    ...but as we have seen the underlying causes of the unnaturally high prices are complex so people don't make a straight line between being outbid for the fourth time and their voting paper.

    There is no doubt left in anyone's mind the failure FFG have made of the housing market in this country, and their continuing interference to keep demand inflated, while getting the buyers into more and more debt.



Advertisement