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

You could say that about petrol inflation for those who don't use cars or butter inflation for those that don't use butter. It's probably meaningless to silo various goods in the CPI basket just because you don't use those particular goods. If inflation is generally going upwards, it will hit you some way, be it your bus fare, your Big Mac, your health insurance or your toothpaste.

Suffice it to say, if you own your home outright, your disposable income is obviously far better than someone who doesn't but your euro only goes just as far as the renter next door...except that you may have more euros....

They recently imposed new legislation over here in Vancouver around Air Bnb

It has only been a few weeks, but there have been plenty of people with various properties playing the victim, that it's their retirement plan etc etc. Not much sympathy for them.

You do see a lot now on Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace, but the prices are clearly to try and not take too much of a hit on them. Time will tell how it plays out over here.

Time to drop this

What do folks think of this proposed closed bid process that they might introduce in Ireland? At least this would eliminate fears about phantom bids or that you are bidding against yourself...

“They will examine the evidence, they will hear people’s stories. But I know in Scotland they have a different system of bidding, it is a closed bid where a person puts in their bid once and the highest bidder gets the house. I am not saying it is the best thing to do, it might not be, but at least it gets away from that stress a lot of people experience several times. By the time they actually get to buy a house, they were outbid a few times and it drags on for weeks.”

Bidding process for buying homes in Ireland could be overhauled after expert process

https://www.irishtimes.com/politics/2023/11/14/bidding-process-for-buying-homes-in-ireland-could-be-overhauled-after-expert-process/

Neighbour recently sold up, and chose to sell to a young family instead of a shady character who bid 5k more. What we have at the moment is not perfect, but it's better than the closed bid process IMO.

PS. Also, it's naive to think that any other process is not open to corruption. For example, what's to stop an insider contacting an investor that's giving them backhanders and telling them the current highest bid on property X is €415,000 etc.

This is good to see, and we need more of it, especially in Dublin. However the cynic in me thinks that despite the subsidies, the apartments will still retail for ~€4-500k. Most buyers in that range will want a house, and they will struggle to sell these. Ultimately the state and various AHBs will then step in and buy up most of them and the blocks will become defacto social housing ghettos.

I hope I'm wrong.

Disaster waiting to happen

If the project is unviable, let market forces work till it's at a point of viability.

You should give up. You are just arguing for the sake of pretending to yourself that you didnt lose the argument now. At this point its like you are trying to crawl up your own arse :)

Tax payer handouts to builders is all this is.

As much as people seem to loathe builders/developers, the quickest and probably cheapest way of getting large scale supply of houses, is to incentivise the private sector to build them.

Good to see more competition. Had a quick look. Best rate is 4.65%...not exactly game changer. When avant entered they had cheapest rates

How long did it take you to get mortgage approval? I got a HVM mortgage approved from the underwriters, with an exception from the banks normal maximum for FTB's, which I think my guy told me was 750k, in less than a week.

Not to promote, there are so few banks you can guess, they have people at the bank who will analyse any property you are interested in and provide you with same day feedback on comparative value, location etc. The service is exemplary, to be honest.

As far as pain points go, I'd say dealing with banks in Ireland is a 1/10 and the dearth of property is a solid 10.

Here's an interesting take on Bawag - https://petrusadvisers.com/media/20230630_-_bawag_-_back-up_materials_vf.pdf

I can’t remember specifics as we weren’t in a rush. Wasn’t too bad for us but we drew down a very low LTI and LTV. Approval was quick. Before drawdown there was some bizarre querying of individual transactions

‘what’s this €1,200 purchase?’

Type response in portal

2 days to read response

‘what’s this transaction…’

This with a bank I’ve used for 10+ years and had saved a few hundred thousand for the deposit.

I also saw with friends scenarios like

’youll probably get the exemption but we won’t give it to you until you identify a property’

’but how can I know I can afford it then if you haven’t confirmed the exemption?’

Shrugs.

It’s far from steamlined so there is definitely room for a first class service (instant responses. Any day of the week) but at a slightly higher cost.

Assume in future a Fintech will link into your finances at all time (with your consent) and be able to underwrite your mortgage in seconds.

All valid concerns.

But the alternative being construction grinding to a halt while we add 100k to the population each year with an already seemingly significant shortage of apartments and houses. The way out of this is not straightforward.

It's almost like the government has only ever implemented policy to keep the cost of housing high.

Go figure.

Anyways, here's a concrete levy.