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

Those people make up the majority of the country. People aren't really going to fancy voting for whatever party you want to get into power so you might be able to buy a house if they don't shut up about negatively impacting a large chunk of home owners. The way some of you go on in this thread is like people that own a home in Ireland are some sort of elite ruling class 😂

I took out grabrails all over on my house, kept (and indeed reinstated when getting new stairs) the second bannister though as it's useful for going down stairs.

Both external doors, bathroom, beside the bed etc had grabrails in - I suspect if the previous owner hadn't gone to a care home relatively early there'd have been a wet room and stair lift too

My brother in law had worse. The previous occupant put a wet room off the kitchen, but moved into a care home before even using it. Brother in law got it ripped back out. 2 builders delighted, everybody else frustrated.

It does impact because it is still an asset.

Its a pointless aim anyway as it is unachievable.

You cant press a button and reduce house prices to 300k or whatever arbitary figure SF come up with.

The market dictates the prices. Nothing else.

In later life, the kids will have the asset.

Doesnt mean they can leverage that asset today though.

It is an unachievable instant outcome.

To lower house prices means a lot of levers shifting over a period of time, some which the govt have control of and some which they do not.

Its rather a pointless and populist thing to say "we will make house prices 300k" and then not explain how it will be done and over what time frame.

Which is why SF got ripped for saying it and is probably one of the reasons they are tanking in the polls.

I think more people are waking up from the haze and realising that SF are talking populist nonsense.

True negative equity is fairly rare - you need to have a large mortgage and a very large price drop.

Anyone with little or no mortgage left on the house would not be in negative equity if house prices dropped such that average in dub was 300k.

If you aren't in actual negative equity, prices dropping is pretty much irrelevant. If you want to trade up or down, seeing as all house prices have fallen you are no worse off than before they dropped.

If average home prices in Ireland dropped 30% tomorrow it wouldn't push the "majority of the country" into negative equity.

30% of households are renting - unaffected

36% of households are mortgage free homeowners - unaffected

And for the remaining 34% of mortgage owners only a minority would actually be impacted. The only people who would be pushed into negative equity are those with large outstanding mortgages on property bought in the last 5 odd years. And even within that cohort only those who're planning on selling their house in the next few years would actually feel this in real life, as opposed to as a theoretical asset value figure.

The people who would actually be hugely hit by a large drop in home values are the institutional investors, property developers, and property speculators. Which is why the government fights tooth and nail against it.

If the banks have been doing their job properly, a 10% reduction wouldn't leave anyone in negative equity at all and every % above that would only bring in small volumes until at least 20%

The problem is that people think negative equity just means being at a loss on total purchase price.

You'd be wrong on that. Even a majority of home owners want a drop in prices now:

"A significant 69pc of people agreed that the average price of a house in Dublin, which currently stands at €430,000, should fall to €300,000 as suggested by Ms McDonald.

A further 63pc of people polled said they would like to see property prices fall even if it meant their own home depreciated in value."

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/poll-public-backs-mary-lou-mcdonalds-call-for-300000-average-house-price-in-dublin/a1386646140.html

Presumably because most home owners are more negatively impacted by the current excessive house prices than they would be by any fall - those who own/manage businesses can't get staff, hundreds of thousands of children in their 20s/30s not leaving home and stuck at home with non-plussed parental home owners etc.

Hello.

I own my home and a holiday home. Abd I'd have no problems with a 30% drop. And I have never and will never vote SF

You must be in a nice financial position so! 30% drop when nothing else in the world gets any cheaper is a big hit. It's also basically impossible to do in isolation, realistically, so a bit of a pointless question. But happy to admit I was wrong in my assertion.

It does not. It has equal irrelevance.

Unless the Govt change policy to push prices down in some way...

But thats a very different thing than accepting price falls.

That would be activley pursuing house price falls. Which I dont see happening personally, other than by virtue of more homes coming to market, as they should do.

But there is still a lot of track left on that road and I dont think with the numbers being built currently that there will be any real fall for years as a result of increased home building - unless we suddenly started building upwards of 50k per year.

It could be 50% drop for all I care, I will not be materially impacted by it at all unless I decide to sell.

However if all house prices are falling, then the difference between my house and the house I want to trade up might actually be smaller, so I could save money!

Also if valuation of my home drops a lot, I would owe less LPT