Current public sentiment towards the housing market?

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Whathome, I totally agree with you - the biggest wedge of population in ireland is 28-35 and are obsessed with property. The trick is going to be to target the next obsession...ask the folks what they were into when they were 40...if they can remember! Reckon private health care...maybe we should be investimg in nursing homes (kinda ties in with property)
Firefly

I was thinking about the same thing - maybe commercial property: a cosmetic surgery clinic ;)
 
The Girlfriends father is a director in a very large building firm in Ireland.

About 2 months ago he disagreed with my view that we were heading for a property price correction, in fact he laughed lamenting that he couldn't see the end in sight!

Last week that firm cancelled all of it plans to build residential apartments in 2007. It also pulled out of several bidding wars that they were in trying to get land in dublin. They have also brought forward the completion dates of its existing apartment developments. In fact they have increased the workforce by 50% to get two large apartment blocks finished by the end of the year.

That to me is a worrying sign! to say the least.

That is very telling that sentiment inside the building firms has soured so quickly. If we see a slowdown in building next year will many of the immigrants from the EU-10 head to some of the other countries which have opened up their labour markets thus causing even more vacant properties to appear.

This could turn far quicker than even I (a huge property bear) would have seen it being played out. Anyone buying in the current climate needs the men with the butterfly nets to nab them before they sign on the line which is dotted..........
 
Last week that firm cancelled all of it plans to build residential apartments in 2007. It also pulled out of several bidding wars that they were in trying to get land in dublin. They have also brought forward the completion dates of its existing apartment developments. In fact they have increased the workforce by 50% to get two large apartment blocks finished by the end of the year.


Would this be 1200 apartments in Tallaght?
 
Short-term speculators - I wonder how many of these are about.

We lost (Edit: opted out of) a bidding war on a €900,000 house in February, the deal went through a few weeks later. Driving past it today, Mrs. Whathome noticed that it had not been touched, weeds in the garden etc. So she cheekily stopped and took a closer look and it's vacant.

No building work, no furniture. It's exactly as it was in Feb. I'm not saying it was definitely a speculator however.

With IO mortgages I wonder if there are many people taking big short-term bets on Dublin property?

A four bed semi detached house in D4 sold for 2.435 million a couple of months ago. It needs total refurbishment! Since the auction it has remained empty. The reason, I'm told, is that the buyer is awaiting planning permission.
 
A four bed semi detached house in D4 sold for 2.435 million a couple of months ago. It needs total refurbishment! Since the auction it has remained empty. The reason, I'm told, is that the buyer is awaiting planning permission.

900k empty house was perfect, had already been done with new extension etc. One of the reasons we were so keen was that it was immaculate. Vacant for six months now, no skips or building mods going on.

In the Bank of Ireland Quarterly review for August '06 it mentions that in 2005, 54,000 loans were for new houses but there were 81,000 new house completions.
[broken link removed]
Could 27,000 new properties really have been bought with no mortgage last year?
Builders hanging on to 1/3 of their completions?
 
...what has that got to do with anything?

I'm comparing it to the dotcom bubble, IT graduates in the mid nineties were paid much more than they are worth, I'm simply saying that paying these relatively large wages to an inexperienced graduate is indicative of a bubble.

I can't see graduates from his course earning that kind of money in Ireland when the market corrects itself.
 
Last week that firm cancelled all of it plans to build residential apartments in 2007. It also pulled out of several bidding wars that they were in trying to get land in dublin. They have also brought forward the completion dates of its existing apartment developments. In fact they have increased the workforce by 50% to get two large apartment blocks finished by the end of the year.

Was the demand not there for the residential apartments ?
Do you know if the apts where the completion dates were brought forward are all sold (deposit taken) ?
 
€548K for a one bed in Clontarf!!!

Properties like these surely have a long way to fall in any downturn, just who would pay that for a one bed apartment 657 sq foot in Clontarf D3 Ireland???, crazy, absolutely crazy.

Theres a story behind this one. They were built by the guy who owns the Beaumount House. He tried to sell them himself and cut off the agents. He sold none. They sat there for 6 months when completed. Then Sherry Fitz got involved. They still didn't sell. Then the guy went around putting Sold signs on most of the properties and put some up for rent. Were vacent for another 6 months. Now they're being sold one by one. Seems to have sold a few. Yes they're way over priced. Word was you could have got one for €490k if you made an over. The 2 beds were/are even more outragous at €750k. Incidently this area is prone to high tide flooding and did so about 3 years ago.
 
Far fewer First Time Buyers in coming years?

I was thinking about how the baby boom from the 70's has worked it's way through the various obsessions that have taken Ireland.

DMcW makes reference to it here, pubs closing etc.:
http://www.davidmcwilliams.ie/Articles/view.asp?CategoryID=-1&CategoryName=&ArticleID=267

Is property just the latest obsession because a glut of people at the "that" age need to buy property?

Nobody talks about the college points race anymore - because there are far fewer people in "that" age bracket and there is a surplus of college places.

Do you remember Superpubs?

In a few years, will people be saying "Do you remember the proberty bubble?"

With far fewer FTB's coming on the scene, who will prop up the market?

That's exactly my feeling. Demographics made it and demographics have broken it. In the case of property demographics too will break it. You don't see the 90k per year immigrants propping up the pub business.

All you have to do is look around somewhere like Blackrock for a snapshot of how the pubs are struggling these days. 2 pubs gone since I returned to work in this area. Other pubs like the Dollymount House in Clontarf have closed down to be (subject to pp) turned into appartments. It had a very viable food business but no more than 50 people on a Fri/Sat night. It was one of the superpubs when I was turning 18.
 
Theres a story behind this one. They were built by the guy who owns the Beaumount House. He tried to sell them himself and cut off the agents. He sold none. They sat there for 6 months when completed. Then Sherry Fitz got involved. They still didn't sell. Then the guy went around putting Sold signs on most of the properties and put some up for rent. Were vacent for another 6 months. Now they're being sold one by one. Seems to have sold a few. Yes they're way over priced. Word was you could have got one for €490k if you made an over. The 2 beds were/are even more outragous at €750k. Incidently this area is prone to high tide flooding and did so about 3 years ago.

My family home is in Raheny, and I can tell you that very same story has travelled from D3 to D5. It's hilarious really the fact that yer man had to put up 'sold' signs on his flats! You're right about the flooding too. Wouldn't go near that ground-floor, one bed with a barge pole.

Hilarious!
 
All you have to do is look around somewhere like Blackrock for a snapshot of how the pubs are struggling these days. 2 pubs gone since I returned to work in this area. Other pubs like the Dollymount House in Clontarf have closed down to be (subject to pp) turned into appartments. It had a very viable food business but no more than 50 people on a Fri/Sat night. It was one of the superpubs when I was turning 18.

I'd say you'd be damn glad to have a pub in the future. Selling out to build apartments in the hope the property market is still buoyant in 2 year's time is a risky endeavour.
 
All you have to do is look around somewhere like Blackrock for a snapshot of how the pubs are struggling these days.

The peak pub every night demographic bulge has already gone through. The number of 18 year olds in ireland peaked in c.1999 and these guys are now 25. While many are about to buy (after they pay off Australia don't forget) it is MOST likely that they will reluctantly buy into a falling market.

The immigrants will have gone because there is no more building . Thast what brought most of them here. The flippers will be dumpers :p

It was said of the dot com boom that 10 years worth of infrastructure was built in 5 years and took 5 years to work out of the system. The same is true of Irish property. A sustainable level of building in this decade was some 50000 units a year but we have built 80000 a year for 4 years (including this) on average and now have an overhang of at least 2.4 years building (120000 units) to work through.

By that measure we would reach equilibrium again in 2 or 3 years but ONLY if we build nothing . As we will still build something every year it will take 4-5 years of slumpitude before this equilibrium is reached. Thats my opinion anyway.
 
This is something you wouldnt want to be in your investment profolio in the current weakening market.

I was thinking about how much i would pay for this place. I put a figure of 80K. Max 100k (over 25 yrs at 4% would be 530 a month). Future rental yields would be about 700 max a month i think as it is a very old property.

But that is how, IMO, such property could crash substantially in price. From 380K to 80K/100K.
 
just to follow on from a earlier post regarding number of properties for sale within an estate, i have heard of a particular agent in Blanch putting for sale signs outside properties they are letting on behalf of clients to get the name out and about

this has led to a bit of a panic amongst some of my neighbours thinking everyone is doing a runner!
 
But that is how, IMO, such property could crash substantially in price. From 380K to 80K/100K.

Unlikely.

In peripheral areas property will fall as much as 50% from now. In better areas as little as 25% . Outer commuter belt is what I call peripheral. 30-50 miles out from Dublin and 10-25 miles out from Galway . Those kinds of areas will be savaged. No modern houses will drop below €150k except out the back of Ballivor maybe .

Dodgy apartments in the cities where the management fees and structures are loaded against the occupiers will also get it in the neck. I can see standard purchase contracts for apartments becoming very very strict and lots of litigation between apartment 'owners' and their management companies and agents and legislation to clean the whole mess up .

That will take years to sort out though , affecting the prices in some complexes very badly as apartment purchasers migrate towards transparently and fairly managed complexes.
 
In the Bank of Ireland Quarterly review for August '06 it mentions that in 2005, 54,000 loans were for new houses but there were 81,000 new house completions.
[broken link removed]
Could 27,000 new properties really have been bought with no mortgage last year?
Builders hanging on to 1/3 of their completions?

Thanks for the link... Interesting reading.

When that 275,000 vacancy number first materialized from the CSO report I was a bit dubious because it seemed so high. With this data showing that up to a 1/3 of new properties may not be sold and anecdotal evidence that some investors are willing to hold on to properties without renting them out, that figure may not be far out after all.

I really have to laugh at their methods for working out affordability in that same report though:

Our own model compares the annual cost of servicing an average new mortgage
(with an assumed 25-year term) with average gross earnings. The latter is
calculated by dividing the total wages paid to employees by the number of
employees. In 2005, for example, this delivers a figure of €38,240, a 5%
increase on the previous year. Using an average mortgage rate of 3.5% and a
€200,000 mortgage gives a monthly outlay of €1,000, or 31.4% of average
earnings.

I can't imagine that many mortgages this year were taken out over 25 years. An average earnings figure of 38,240 seems excessive (the median might be more useful) and the mortgage rate given at 3.5% is no longer a realistic figure. Also to top it all off, suggesting that an average mortgage of 200,000 is a useful guage on affordability is a joke!

Even with these heavily skewed figures they are unable to hide the complete loss of affordability.
 
Unlikely.

In peripheral areas property will fall as much as 50% from now. In better areas as little as 25% . Outer commuter belt is what I call peripheral. 30-50 miles out from Dublin and 10-25 miles out from Galway . Those kinds of areas will be savaged. No modern houses will drop below €150k except out the back of Ballivor maybe .

Dodgy apartments in the cities where the management fees and structures are loaded against the occupiers will also get it in the neck. I can see standard purchase contracts for apartments becoming very very strict and lots of litigation between apartment 'owners' and their management companies and agents and legislation to clean the whole mess up .

That will take years to sort out though , affecting the prices in some complexes very badly as apartment purchasers migrate towards transparently and fairly managed complexes.

I would not be so general in your percentages because it will differ from house to house. For example with over-supply the whisper of car noise from outside will render many properties undesirable when you have choice.

So what would you pay for the linked apartment ?
 
I would not be so general in your percentages because it will differ from house to house.

You are right in stating that there will be variations Phoenix but you are WRONG if you think that the €80k-€100k semi is making a comeback anytime in this decade unless its situated beside a hardstand or under a motorway or something like that :D . I have my assumptions , as stated, on average variations to do with distances, time of commute , cost of petrol , overhangs of properties in more desirable areas, etc etc.

Even if an apartment complex was run by scum from hell developers it still has some value ...but maybe not much. Once some of them are badly flooded (and uninsurable for eternity thereafter ) they will go as low as €50k in some cases but that does not mean I want to swim either.
 
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