Key Post What Brendan Burgess has actually said about property, prices and borrowing

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Re: What I have actually said about property, prices and borrowing

Afuera said:
In fairness Brendan, a lot of the stuff you have said over the years has been very bullish on property. The above quote being the first example I came across where you are trying to come up with a way of helping first time buyers get themselves on the "housing ladder".

Maybe you did not intend it to come across so bullish. Or maybe it is simply a product of the psyche of the country at the time. Either way, you are promoting property and the idea that it is a way of attaining wealth. Trying to revise things now, is neither here nor there.
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Afuera

Did you read the post? Why did you not quote the other bits from it? This was a practical thread aimed at helping people who were saving for a property to find a savings product which would rise or fall in line with property prices.

So in March 2004 I was "bullish" on the property market?

What I would like is ideas for a savings product which would rise or fall roughly in line with house prices.
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Back then I was one of very few people talking about the possibility of house prices falling.

One reason for looking for this product, is that it would have stopped first time buyers from panicking.

Brendan
 
Re: What I have actually said about property, prices and borrowing

Afuera said:
People were taking major risks in buying property at such elevated levels yet you stated such gems as the following: "It is ok to stretch yourself financially to get on the housing market"

Link: Interest Only Mortgages - Whats the catch?
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Afuera, what is obtuse about quoting the full context?

I would be less enthusiastic about an interest only mortgage for someone trading up. In the current market, you should really only trade up if you have to or if you are getting a really great bargain. It is ok to stretch yourself financially to get on the housing market, I don't think that you should do it every few years.
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At least we agree on one thing. It is a gem. It is one of the few comments I have made about house prices. "In the current market you should only trade up if you have to or if you are getting a great bargain". Was this too obtuse for you?



The big problem for people buying houses in Ireland is that the transaction costs are huge. Ideally it would be much better to buy 50k worth of a house and then trade up to €100k's worth when you are ready. But if you are getting a starter home, you need to stretch yourself.


Brendan
 
Re: What I have actually said about property, prices and borrowing

Couple of questions for Brendan
1. Are you still a shareholder in AIB - it is unclear from your post above ?

2. Why did you feel the need to appear on RTE reassuring consumers that that

"Irish Banks are very well regulated. Irish banks are very sound"

right before they collapsed?
 
Re: What I have actually said about property, prices and borrowing

This thread has caused me to look through the archives.

Saving for a House

I was grateful to receive some advice from Brendan on whether to purchase or not.

Brendan was more positive than I was about the prospect but still said he didn't know what way things would go. I stayed away and still don't own.

It took me a while to find this in the archive, and I'm intrigued if Bob ever bought.

I thought things we're too hot by 2003-2004 and stayed out. It looks like conventional wisdom at the time was that over a number of years housing was a one way bet.
 
Re: What I have actually said about property, prices and borrowing

Brendan said:
Hi Aristotle, welcome to the community of Askaboutmoney.

We have very strict posting guidelines on remaining civil, avoiding bad language, defamation etc.

The thread was constantly in breach of the guidelines. This creates a lot of work for moderators and the thread added nothing at all.

In the past, we have had to suspend discussions on Ryanair, Public Service Bashing and some other topics as well.

As is explained in the thread on why we banned house prices - I am the only one who made an effort to get a balanced discussion going. People prefer shouting abuse rather than takiing time out to actually write a long piece summarising the arguments.
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Brendan, I rather think this is a somewhat unfair summary of the situation. As I recall I contributed to various property value related threads on this site and while I recall some fractiousness, it is unfair to a great number of posters who provided thoughtful posts on the subject to tar all contributors to those threads with the same negative brush.

I would also question whether the thread genuinely contributed nothing at all. It might be worth opening it for view to the public again. No doubt you would prefer to see it remained locked but as a snapshot of recent social history in Ireland it would be quite interesting to see it opened up to public view again. Hindsight can be a very powerful thing. It would provide some balance to the debate taking place now I suspect. The thread I'm talking about is the "Current public sentiment towards the housing market" thread which ran in 2006.
 
Re: What I have actually said about property, prices and borrowing

This thread amuses me. For the benefit of those who don't already know, many of the critics of Brendan Burgess on this thread are regulars on another financial website, The Property Pin. The Property Pin was set up some years ago by a group of Askaboutmoney posters who got thrown off this board for repeated breaches of posting guidelines. Rather than simply letting it go and moving on like adults, they set up their own board and have spent literally years slagging Brendan off and trying to make out that he's some sort of evil genius out of an Austin Power mivie.

Quotes from the Property Pin: -

"Come on, lads - into the breach." (Encouraging Property Pin regulars to post on an AAM thread.)

"F***ing moron." (Intelligent criticism of David Duffy on hearing he is on the debt committee.)

"He might know about trackers but he knows f*** all about honesty and being fair. Pri**" (Intelligent criticism of Brendan Burgess.)

"I emailed Pat Kenny's programme about this and included some posts from Brendan. I suggest others do the same if they get a chance. Nothing may come of it but you'd never know and it would be great to get this c*** [DV - rhymes with "stunt"] sacked before this group even gets started."
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Now if someone published stuff like that about my real name, while hiding behind anonymity, my lawyers would have the site shut down in less than one working day. But Brendan is obviously a bigger man than me as he never bothered. Or maybe he knows that nobody reads it anyway.

But when some of them (you know who you are) start to come over to Askaboutmoney, which people actually read, I think that the motivations need to be exposed. They're just sad little people who have been trying to have a go at Brendan Burgess for years, since they were thrown out of his site.

Seriously - lads - grow up and let it go. In the final analysis, Brendan Burgess will be remembered as a man who did a huge amount of hard and unpaid work to help real people in the real world, through his years of consumer campaigning and through Askaboutmoney. Your little virtual club of Askaboutmoney rejects won't be remembered for anything except online negativity.
 
Re: What I have actually said about property, prices and borrowing

I am a long long long time reader of AAM (I had a user-id pre-casiopea as well). During my time here Ive bought 2 properties, sold one, and tried to buy an appartment (was not successful). I state this to show that I had a very active interest in these threads and in the property forums. I have had posts deleted and have not always gotten on with some posters (some mods included) but I have always found AAM, brendan and the mods to be fair and helpful. If I were to criticize at all Id say they are a little on the conservative side and a little bit black and white (ie no grey areas). But that is a presonal opinion and as a member of the club I can live with the rules.

In short Im pretty stunned to see these allegations laid against Brendan. I think he has provided a great service here. I think a lot of people are hurting for a lot of reasons. But its not Brendans fault - regardless of whether he has AIB shares or not.
 
Re: What I have actually said about property, prices and borrowing

Thankyou Dave for the explanation. Have to say I was really confused reading the thread. I am not going to comment very much on the content because I don’t feel I know enough but I am quite astonished at the animosity in the attack. I was also very concerned at the way every comment made by Brendan in the past is being picked over for ammunition to support some sort of theory that he should have prophesied and warned everyone about the property downturn. My understand of AAM has always been that it’s a chat room where you get some guidance and advise from the ordinary joe soap which may or may not prove useful but it is by no means to be solely relied on to make important decisions. I don’t think anyone would contribute to a chat room if they were held liable in some way. How many different types of situations (e.g. noisy neighbours) come up where there are a variety of opinions and approaches suggested. Am I responsible if I suggest to somebody to try talking to their neighbour and they then get punched in the face? Should we now hold anyone who previously advised another aam member to buy a house, responsible, if they have negative equity? To those who are picking back over old posts – have they looked at their own?
 
Re: What I have actually said about property, prices and borrowing

Hi Thrifty,

I think it tells you a lot about the mentality of the AAM reject brigade that they've obviously spent a lot of time storing quotes from Brendan over many years, just waiting to bring them up again. I'd recommend that they invest the same amount of time and energy in more positive pursuits like Brendan does.

DV
 
Re: What I have actually said about property, prices and borrowing

Calina said:
No doubt you would prefer to see it remained locked but as a snapshot of recent social history in Ireland it would be quite interesting to see it opened up to public view again. Hindsight can be a very powerful thing. It would provide some balance to the debate taking place now I suspect. The thread I'm talking about is the "Current public sentiment towards the housing market" thread which ran in 2006.
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Calina

This is yet another extraordinary attack on me which is completely unsupported by the facts. Please, please, please, do not allow the facts get in the way of your prejudices.

No doubt you would prefer to see it remained locked but as a snapshot of recent social history in Ireland it would be quite interesting to see it opened up to public view again.
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Why on earth would I want it hidden? I don't think I made any contribution to it.

This thread was locked but was never hidden to the public. It was referred to in the Key Post "Why house price discussion is banned".

As it is the largest ever thread on Askaboutmoney, it is easy to find.

But just in case you can't find it...

http://www.askaboutmoney.com/showthread.php?t=31710

Now off you go and search the thread to find my predictions on house prices.
 
Re: What I have actually said about property, prices and borrowing

Update :

I found the link to the full RTE "Fill your boots" interview so I have edited this post and the following two posts to provide the full transcript.

Brendan
 
Re: What I have actually said about property, prices and borrowing

asta said:
Couple of questions for Brendan
1. Are you still a shareholder in AIB - it is unclear from your post above ?

2. Why did you feel the need to appear on RTE reassuring consumers that that "Irish Banks are very well regulated. Irish banks are very sound"

right before they collapsed?
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Hi Asta

1) I sold my shares in AIB some months ago. I do still have an ISEQ ETF which I presume holds shares in the Irish banks.

2) I have updated this post to explain the background to appeariing on the news.
 
Re: What I have actually said about property, prices and borrowing

Dave Vanian said:
In the final analysis, Brendan Burgess will be remembered as a man who did a huge amount of hard and unpaid work to help real people in the real world, through his years of consumer campaigning and through Askaboutmoney.
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Hear, hear.
 
Re: What I have actually said about property, prices and borrowing

This threadis about "What I have actually said about property, prices and borrowing" rather than Brendan in general. So you should stick to the point of the thread.
 
Re: What I have actually said about property, prices and borrowing

Why didn't Brendan warn people we were in the middle of a huge property bubble?

There are only two answers to this:

1) He was unaware of this, even though the dogs on the street could see it. This should raise serious question marks about him being appointed to any financial body.

2) He had a vested interest in keeping his mouth shut, for example, if he had a lot of bank shares...


Brendan said:
[Regarding being allowed talk about house prices going up:] It will take you a very, very long time to find them as it's entirely your imagination.
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Honestly I have more important things to be doing with my spare time than searching askaboutmoney for proof we all know is true: any negative talk resulted in bans, and positive talk was "tolerated" or at worst, resulted in a warning.

Have you ever banned someone for saying the economy might be pick up so house prices might rise? Didn't think so.
 
Re: What I have actually said about property, prices and borrowing

Brendan said:
Calina

This is yet another extraordinary attack on me which is completely unsupported by the facts. Please, please, please, do not allow the fact get in the way of your prejudices.
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Brendan, I would be grateful if you read my post more carefully. I pointed out that you might find it desirable to leave the thread locked - as in not open for additional posts to be made to it - but that I personally would find it useful if it were at least accessible to the public. It did not constitute an attack on you personally and I find it inexplicable that you would have read it as such.

Brendan said:
Why on earth would I want it hidden? I don't think I made any contribution to it.

This thread was locked but was never hidden to the public. It was referred to in the Key Post "Why house price discussion is banned"

And just in case you can't find it...

http://www.askaboutmoney.com/showthread.php?t=31710

Now off you go and search the thread to find my predictions on house prices.
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I have a screencap of the first page showing clearly that it is in Moderator's Area/House Price Discussion Forum. While House Price Discussion Forum might be accessible to users, the fact that it is in Moderator's Area means it's not visible because the parent forum is not visible to non-moderator users.

As a logged in user, this forum does not appear in the list of fora accessible to me and the posts I made in the thread do not appear in the list of posts made by me if I go back through my own CP. Hence, finding it is not straightforward. For this I would like to thank you for the direct link.

I have other interests in the thread than your predictions on house prices. What fascinates me particularly is how what was said then relates to how events turned out subsequently.

Best regards,

Calina.
 
Re: What I have actually said about property, prices and borrowing

aristotle said:
This threadis about "What I have actually said about property, prices and borrowing" rather than Brendan in general. So you should stick to the point of the thread.
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I think it's important this discussion is allowed continue, as it is very clear Brendan has a credibility problem.

As we can only base our opinions on the things he says and the things he does, he is solely to blame for this.

EDIT: I don't mean to sound harsh, and I apologise if I am, but I am just saying it as I see it.
 
Re: What I have actually said about property, prices and borrowing

No doubt you would prefer to see it remained locked but as a snapshot of recent social history in Ireland it would be quite interesting to see it opened up to public view again.
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Apologies. I did misread the post, because I had thought that the thread was open to the public. I thought you were confusing "locked" with "hidden" .

Given the abuse I have been subjected to I assumed that you were implying that it somehow served my interests to hide the post.

Brendan
 
Re: What I have actually said about property, prices and borrowing

Brendan, I don't know why you put up with all this crap.

Brendan and a couple of other people are brave enough to post under their own names. None of the rest of us are brave enough to do that so to start using his posts against him to question his credibility is extremely unfair especially when you hide behind a username. We have no idea what vested interests you have.

I don't always agree with Brendan but I don't for one second doubt he has done more for consumers of financial services in this Country than the rest of us put together. I don't care if Brendan or anyone else said house prices would rise 1000%. I don't care if he said buy bank shares. I don't care if he said Mary Coughlan should be the leader of this country. None of that disqualifies him from being a suitable and welcome addition to the panel.
 
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