She says buy, I say wait - who's right?

dny123456

OP, would you be happy waiting 10 years?

That's how long you might be waiting, as the price may very well continue to slowly slide, or stay stable for a very long time. The big drop is over, but now we could be in for a slow painful grinding down of prices. Problem with waiting of course is, a shorter time to pay the mortgage off (and higher repayments as a result) and more importantly 10 years of hiding the cat!

Good luck with the choice, you will probably dither for a couple of years and then eventually get fed up waiting and take the plunge.

Either that or you'll break up with the GF and lose the cat.

jetski

LOL

gurramok

krugerrand wrote: »

Glad that you won't base any of your life-changing decisions based on what you read in a thread on Boards.ie. You'll find a lot of evangelical types here on Boards who will try and convince you that house prices will be falling for years on end. I would strongly advise you to use your common sense to reject much of what these doomsday merchants are peddling on Boards.ie and on some of the more extremist internet forums for irish property. Many of these doomsday merchants have a vested interest; they attempt to scare potential purchasers (mainly first-time-buyers) from buying by "talking down" house prices in the hope that the doomsday merchant himself will be able pick up a house on the cheap. You can spot them a mile away.

That post belongs in the Humour forum.

Selling a gaff are you? Overpaid for your gaff?

Of course, falling prices is nothing to do with economics and more to do with scaremongering:p

'Doomsday merchants', 'extremist internet forums', this gets funnier.
Never knew there would be an Al Qaeda style property forum in existence

SkepticOne

Get her to agree to hold off for one year and see where things stand then would be my advice. Personally I think there's at least a couple more years of declines. The reason for this view is that there's still a lot of denial out there that the market has yet to purge.

Pa ElGrande

If you don't like the place you are currently renting there are plenty other places available to rent, prices have come down and some even have gardens and are more flexible towards cats.
If you are thinking of starting a family you can even rent in an area you might desire to live long term either near a school and other services.

Of course there is nothing to stop you going out there and doing some tyre kicking, there are some good properties on sale via EAs that are not advertised on the web sites such as daft.ie for fear of alerting the neighbours and creditors to their financial distress.

The challenge for you, you are being motivated by emotional rather than rational considerations and this is nearly always a bad idea as the basis of a major financial commitment over 30/40 years.

What I would suggest is you sit down with a pen and paper, turn off the TV and d'internet and write out the reasons for buying and the reasons for renting. Also get your girlfriend to do this exercise, but you have to be honest, and try and workout realistic costs of both options and other costs of living (kids are expensive). You can then use it as a basis to decide what specifications you both want in a property, what your price and location limits are and what will meet your goals in life.

This is a useful exercise because you both will be like putty in an estate agents fingers the minute you step through the door of his/her office, your girlfriend will select the property that you are going to buy, the EA will pick right up on this and play to it. So if you guys already know what you want and how much you are prepared to pay for it, then you can start knocking the vendors down to meet your expectations and best of all there is no pressure on you to queue overnight to get an overpriced shoebox like in 2006 and if the vendor does not accept your offer then bide your time there are other properties out there.

We are not at the end of the housing price crash and if you buy today then the price of your home will be lower next year, this is a matter of fact that you normally expect when buying a car, why should a buying a house be any different? If you both have already worked this out logically before you commit to buying, then there is no scope for recrimination or beating your self up in a years time when it's cheaper again.

tomcollins97

I am also looking with a view to buying in 9-12 months. I am more ‘actively’ searching than my partner but I wouldn’t say I am desperate! I have seen about 10 houses in the last 6 weeks, not a lot I know, but none of them are right. I am prepared for it to take up to a year to find a home which is why I have started looking before we get desperate. Let her look, chances are nothing will come up for a few months anyway. It amy be worthwhile putting a list together of ‘must haves’ and ‘nice to haves’. This is great to use when viewing a property. You may be wowed on first impression but if you start ticking off items on your list and many are not there it makes it easier to have an unemotional response and walk away if the place is not perfect.

Just to give you and idea these are the types of things we have specified that we want:

Garden – decent size and south or west facing.
Beds – min 3 but must have potential to extend
Type – preferably an older house
Location – we have a few picked. We both hate estate houses so are staying away from these
Budget – our max is to buy a walk-in property or cover the cost of purchase+renovations

rediguana

Thanks for the advice, everyone. On balance, I thought people were saying to wait. I showed my wife the thread and she called it a draw - that's what you're up against! :rolleyes:

I'm not saying we should wait forever, I just think there iz zero risk in waiting another few months (maybe as few as six) just to shave another X-grand off prices. We're not planning to move ever from the place, so the negative equity thing, though annoying, isn't a primary concern for us.

She says we should just roll in making stupidly-low offers for places and, as someone in this thread noted, if you can knock off a good bit this way, you insulate yourself to an extent against future price falls.

If I even thought that the bulk of the bust was over, I'd be happy to wade in now. Someone in this thread said that the main decrease is behind us, but I'm sure there would be massive disagreement on that point.

Anyway, keep the arguments coming. I reckon I only need another six or seven "wait, you fools!" points before we have a winner

gurramok

Think of it this way regiguana.

We are going to have a budget today with tax rises/cutbacks. As a result if they do as they have decared in the run up to today, it will leave everyone with less disposable income.

That means less amounts can be borrowed via mortages from banks and that results in even lower selling prices on the market to accommodate this, its really common sense that the only way is down from now on on this aspect.

Xiney

Personally, I would at least wait until unemployment stops rising so fast.

I mean, I won't make any assumptions about your jobs, but nothing is particularly safe right now, apart from collections agents.

But even if your jobs are safe, it stands to reason that prices are going to continue to drop while people continue to lose their jobs.

ntlbell

krugerrand wrote: »

Glad that you won't base any of your life-changing decisions based on what you read in a thread on Boards.ie. You'll find a lot of evangelical types here on Boards who will try and convince you that house prices will be falling for years on end. I would strongly advise you to use your common sense to reject much of what these doomsday merchants are peddling on Boards.ie and on some of the more extremist internet forums for irish property. Many of these doomsday merchants have a vested interest; they attempt to scare potential purchasers (mainly first-time-buyers) from buying by "talking down" house prices in the hope that the doomsday merchant himself will be able pick up a house on the cheap. You can spot them a mile away.

Yes, boards is single handedly responsible for the down turn.

can you give us an overview what YOU think is going to happen over lets say the next 12 months it might be helpful to the OP and I'm looking forward to hearing some good news and a bit of positivity.

voxpop

I still think there is quite a bit if denial and a refusal to drop prices in the property market. I think if you go in with low bids your offer wont be accepted in most cases as the seller still wants to "hold out" for what the property is worth in their eyes (read a year ago).

For example - take the rental market. There is a glut of houses out there and yet I keep coming across houses with really poor finishes, grubby and unkept interiors, rubbish furniture that the landlord is unwilling to remove, crazy conditions on renting and no flexibility. These ppl are still looking for 1600/1700 a month! even thought the house has been sitting empty for 2+ months. They think that because they got away with this for the last rental that they will get away with it for the next rental.

This time next year - it will have sunk in and property might become somewhat reasonable. Even the argument of keeping the house for life is not great because no matter how well you plan, life has a way of being unpredictable. You may get a great job offer, but have to move to take it, for example, but you cant because you house is worth 50k less than your mortgage.

I would wait until 2010 at least - the government is going to continue to scrabble around and everything will be up in the air for the next few months. It will need to settle down before anyone can have have a hope of calling the bottom of the decline correctly.

t-ha

I'm not a property expert or anything, so take this with a pinch of salt.

I'd say the power is in your hands more so than anytime in the recent past when it comes to buying a house. Have a look & you may find your ideal property and your bargaining power will be high.

The only things I would add are that [1] you should be willing to walk away and not buy if you can't get exactly what you want, and [2] you should be able to pay your mortgage comfortably, so that new taxes/levies don't endanger your ability to pay and you can handle any future inflation from economic revival plans.

Shane™

1/ I would just like to point out that at the moment with so many houses and so little competition that you really can buy any house you like, more so that any time in the recent past or when the market does eventually pick up.

2/ I would also like to say as did another poster before me, that house prices are not likely to rise again while the economy is in such bad condition, if the economy picks up prices may or may not continue to fall but at least it would be a much safer time to buy than now.

3/ My first point is actually not a good reason to buy, I believe that the perfect house will always cost more and for me it's not worth it. I would much prefer to buy a cheaper/bigger/better located "almost" perfect house later than buying now.

For what it's worth I predicted a 50% drop over 10 years when I was looking to buy 3 years ago (when my wife was pregnant) and I'm sticking by that for myself. I think it's likely that we could follow Japan where if I remember correctly they're house prices fell for 14 years in a row. I think there's no harm buying into negative equity if you know what you're doing . . . unless of course the economy is falling to pieces.

krugerrand

Quote:
Originally Posted by krugerrand
Glad that you won't base any of your life-changing decisions based on what you read in a thread on Boards.ie. You'll find a lot of evangelical types here on Boards who will try and convince you that house prices will be falling for years on end. I would strongly advise you to use your common sense to reject much of what these doomsday merchants are peddling on Boards.ie and on some of the more extremist internet forums for irish property. Many of these doomsday merchants have a vested interest; they attempt to scare potential purchasers (mainly first-time-buyers) from buying by "talking down" house prices in the hope that the doomsday merchant himself will be able pick up a house on the cheap. You can spot them a mile away.

gurramok wrote: »

That post belongs in the Humour forum.

Selling a gaff are you? Overpaid for your gaff?

Of course, falling prices is nothing to do with economics and more to do with scaremongering:p

'Doomsday merchants', 'extremist internet forums', this gets funnier.
Never knew there would be an Al Qaeda style property forum in existence

No, your post should be in the Humour forum instead.

Sounds lilke I touched a raw nerve with you; your rection says it all.

Since you have asked, I can tell you, no i'm not selling a house, no I did not pay too much for my house, and, furthermore, I got on the property ladder in the 1990s.

As I said before, there's quite a few people on this Forum with Vested Interests in "talking down" house prices and I'm sure that any reader with a modicum of common sense and intelligence can see right through them.

So, let me guess, you might be predicting that the price of a three bedroom semi in, let's say Lucan, will be no more than €70k in five years time?

gurramok

krugerrand wrote: »

No, your post should be in the Humour forum instead.

Sounds lilke I touched a raw nerve with you; your rection says it all.

Since you have asked, I can tell you, no i'm not selling a house, no I did not pay too much for my house, and, furthermore, I got on the property ladder in the 1990s.

As I said before, there's quite a few people on this Forum with Vested Interests in "talking down" house prices and I'm sure that any reader with a modicum of common sense and intelligence can see right through them.

So, let me guess, you might be predicting that the price of a three bedroom semi in, let's say Lucan, will be no more than €70k in five years time?

All i can see is a rant against anyone detailing economic sense. You cannot 'talk down' house prices, the economy takes care of that.

Those Vested Interests you speak of are buyers who do not want to be saddled with 35yr mortgages on a shoebox and to your surprise contains homeowners who see this policy are dangerous and morally wrong.

Those other Vested Interests are those whose livelihoods depend on selling those 35yrs mortgages to those buyers hence warrant valid criticism using facts and figures.

If you cannot see the difference between the two sets, well where is the intelligence and common sense?

ntlbell

krugerrand wrote: »

Quote:
Originally Posted by krugerrand
Glad that you won't base any of your life-changing decisions based on what you read in a thread on Boards.ie. You'll find a lot of evangelical types here on Boards who will try and convince you that house prices will be falling for years on end. I would strongly advise you to use your common sense to reject much of what these doomsday merchants are peddling on Boards.ie and on some of the more extremist internet forums for irish property. Many of these doomsday merchants have a vested interest; they attempt to scare potential purchasers (mainly first-time-buyers) from buying by "talking down" house prices in the hope that the doomsday merchant himself will be able pick up a house on the cheap. You can spot them a mile away.


No, your post should be in the Humour forum instead.

Sounds lilke I touched a raw nerve with you; your rection says it all.

Since you have asked, I can tell you, no i'm not selling a house, no I did not pay too much for my house, and, furthermore, I got on the property ladder in the 1990s.

As I said before, there's quite a few people on this Forum with Vested Interests in "talking down" house prices and I'm sure that any reader with a modicum of common sense and intelligence can see right through them.

So, let me guess, you might be predicting that the price of a three bedroom semi in, let's say Lucan, will be no more than €70k in five years time?

so again just to clarify your position

you think there will be NO more reductions from now and we have established the bottom?

can you clear this up and explain why it is so?

Freddie59

gurramok wrote: »

All i can see is a rant against anyone detailing economic sense. You cannot 'talk down' house prices, the economy takes care of that.

Those Vested Interests you speak of are buyers who do not want to be saddled with 35yr mortgages on a shoebox and to your surprise contains homeowners who see this policy are dangerous and morally wrong.

Those other Vested Interests are those whose livelihoods depend on selling those 35yrs mortgages to those buyers hence warrant valid criticism using facts and figures.

Hands up! I'm a vested interest. Sold our home in November. Got good money for it, thank God. Do not want to pay above the odds while the market is in freefall. Advise others when I can, and on any forum, about information freely available on the Internet. Guilty as charged m'Lud!:)

For God's sake, why are people called vested interests because they're trying to obtain maixumum value for minimum debt? It's common sense.

And what's helping us all this time around? The Internet. Instant information. On demand. The nemesis of the EAs and Property Developers. Long may it last!:D

JuliusCaesar

On the other hand, if you can afford it, you can make extra payments against your mortgage now while interest rates are low, thus reducing the interest you pay in the long-term AND reducing the life of your mortgage.

PS many of the bank of unsold houses will stay unsold because a) they are in locations far from anywhere -see ghosttown.ie and b) the quality of the build is atrocious.

krugerrand

gurramok wrote: »

All i can see is a rant against anyone detailing economic sense. You cannot 'talk down' house prices, the economy takes care of that.

Those Vested Interests you speak of are buyers who do not want to be saddled with 35yr mortgages on a shoebox and to your surprise contains homeowners who see this policy are dangerous and morally wrong.

Those other Vested Interests are those whose livelihoods depend on selling those 35yrs mortgages to those buyers hence warrant valid criticism using facts and figures.

If you cannot see the difference between the two sets, well where is the intelligence and common sense?

Obviously both have Vested Interests. On this forum, I've read many tirades by posters against what they call Vested Interests who they believe contributed to the rise in house prices. Yet the danger of these posts is that the very same poster is apparently either oblivious of or suspiciously silent about the fact that he himself holds a Vested Interest.

So, why not be honest and say: "Hi, I'm [insert your name here], I want house prices to come down and I have a Vested Interest in having lower house prices so that I can buy one cheaper. Therefore, to try and realise my Vested Interest I'm going to be excessively negative in my predictions for house prices in the hope that this will scare other purchasers and result in the prophesy becoming self fulfilling."

Woger

Sorry to bring this off topic but I have a question about negative equity. Is this only an issue if you are thinking about selling in the near future and is one of the problems with some Irish property buyers that they are thinking of what should be their home as short term investment?
Thanks

oceanclub

krugerrand wrote: »

It's nonsense to say that you can't "talk down" house prices. That's exactly at what lots of posters here and on some of the more extremist irish property websites are trying to do. But once the reader sees an excessively low prediction, they should realise what the Vested Interest is up to and ignore what the poster has to say.

Yes, that's right - a bunch of guys on "extremist"(*) websites have as much influence as the multi-billion euro property industry which funds at least 40% of the revenue of the media.

I'll leave it up to others to decide just how dumb this sounds.

P.

(*) What the hell is an "extremist property website" - are these guys donning suicide bombs and launching attacks on estate agents?

krugerrand

Freddie59 wrote: »

Hands up! I'm a vested interest. Sold our home in November. Got good money for it, thank God. Do not want to pay above the odds while the market is in freefall. Advise others when I can, and on any forum, about information freely available on the Internet. Guilty as charged m'Lud!:)

For God's sake, why are people called vested interests because they're trying to obtain maixumum value for minimum debt? It's common sense.

And what's helping us all this time around? The Internet. Instant information. On demand. The nemesis of the EAs and Property Developers. Long may it last!:D

Right, then. You say you've come clean in declaring your Vested Interest. But is your Vested Interest influencing your predictions ? Are you being completely unbiased with regard to the extent of the negativity of any predictions you may have posted ?

You refer to "instant information". I'd refer a significant portion of the posts as "instant mis-information" designed to scare.

ntlbell

krugerrand wrote: »

Obviously both have Vested Interests. On this forum, I've read many tirades by posters against what they call Vested Interests who they believe contributed to the rise in house prices. Yet the danger of these posts is that the very same poster is apparently either oblivious of or suspiciously silent about the fact that he himself holds a Vested Interest.

So, why not be honest and say: "Hi, I'm [insert your name here], I want house prices to come down and I have a Vested Interest in having lower house prices so that I can buy one cheaper. Therefore, to try and realise my Vested Interest I'm going to be excessively negative in my predictions for house prices in the hope that this will scare other purchasers and result in the prophesy becoming self fulfilling."

can you do a "hi _insertnamehere_" and tell us how you feel the market will pan over the next 12 months?

thanks

krugerrand

oceanclub wrote: »

Yes, that's right - a bunch of guys on "extremist"(*) websites have as much influence as the multi-billion euro property industry which funds at least 40% of the revenue of the media.

I'll leave it up to others to decide just how dumb this sounds.

P.

(*) What the hell is an "extremist property website" - are these guys donning suicide bombs and launching attacks on estate agents?

Oceanclub, your talk of suicide bombs is in extremely bad taste and an insult to the many victims of terrorist attacks throughout the world. I'll leave it to the Forum Moderator to take note of your comments.

"Extremist property websites" are very easy to spot. You'll see posts there predicting that the price of a 3 bed semi in Dublin will be no more than €70k in a few years time. That's the general picture. Radical to the extreme.

With regard to whether or not forum posters have the power to influence (or distort) the property market, if you read through the posts you will clearly see that the posters themselves believe that they have such power. Even read through this very thread and you'll see reference to this.

ntlbell

krugerrand wrote: »

Oceanclub, your talk of suicide bombs is in extremely bad taste and an insult to the many victims of terrorist attacks throughout the world. I'll leave it to the Forum Moderator to take note of your comments.

"Extremist property websites" are very easy to spot. You'll see posts there predicting that the price of a 3 bed semi in Dublin will be no more than €70k in a few years time. That's the general picture. Radical to the extreme.

With regard to whether or not forum posters have the power to influence (or distort) the property market, if you read through the posts you will clearly see that the posters themselves believe that they have such power. Even read through this very thread and you'll see reference to this.

So can you give us YOUR opinion on what's going to happen over the next few months/ years

as your obviously not a VI can you give us your independent feedback?

oceanclub

krugerrand wrote: »

Oceanclub, your talk of suicide bombs is in extremely bad taste and an insult to the many victims of terrorist attacks throughout the world. I'll leave it to the Forum Moderator to take note of your comments.

Christ, not just dumb, but pompous too. Hey, if we're going to play silly beggars, well, I think your username is in extremely bad taste and an insult to victims of apartheid, glorifying a mass murderer of black South Africans. How's about that then?

"Extremist property websites" are very easy to spot. You'll see posts there predicting that the price of a 3 bed semi in Dublin will be no more than €70k in a few years time. That's the general picture. Radical to the extreme.

Ah, I see - so, in your mind, an "extremist" website is one which doesn't ban particular opinions. Presumably you are a big fan of askaboutmoney.com, then, which has a long track record of banning those with bearish opinions. Extremist = open discussion; a fairly topsy-turvy view of the word.

With regard to whether or not forum posters have the power to influence (or distort) the property market, if you read through the posts you will clearly see that the posters themselves believe that they have such power.

There are people who sincerely believe in stuff like sky fairies and UFOs. None of this makes it true. Corporations are not in the habit of handing over millions of euros for adverts and property "supplements" unless they perceive they are getting a return on their investment. If they thought they would get a better return by giving this money to forum posters to shill on their behalf, they would. But they don't.

P.

cls

Freddie59 wrote: »

And what's helping us all this time around? The Internet. Instant information. On demand. The nemesis of the EAs and Property Developers. Long may it last!:D

Those with common sense do not take their advice from the internet!! Those with common sense realise that the internet is full of lies, ignorance and bullsh!t. A girl in work told me she changed her childs medication, which was prescribed by a real life doctor, based on "advice" from the internet :eek:

oceanclub

cls wrote: »

Those with common sense do not take their advice from the internet!!

It shouldn't be a case of blindly taking advice from anywhere - you need to know who is giving the advice, why, and what their qualifications are.

I mean, if you think that newspapers are automatically a good source, think again:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/feb/04/comment.pressandpublishing

Nick Davies "commissioned research from specialists at Cardiff University, who surveyed more than 2,000 UK news stories from the four quality dailies (Times, Telegraph, Guardian, Independent) and the Daily Mail. They found two striking things. First, when they tried to trace the origins of their "facts", they discovered that only 12% of the stories were wholly composed of material researched by reporters. With 8% of the stories, they just couldn't be sure. The remaining 80%, they found, were wholly, mainly or partially constructed from second-hand material, provided by news agencies and by the public relations industry. Second, when they looked for evidence that these "facts" had been thoroughly checked, they found this was happening in only 12% of the stories."

P.

krugerrand

ntlbell wrote: »

can you do a "hi _insertnamehere_" and tell us how you feel the market will pan over the next 12 months?

thanks

I'm not foolish enough or pig-ignorant enough to allow myself to say "ok, i predict prices will change by x% in the next 12 months." It all depends on the location of the house along with other factors such as size, condition etc. Some houses will fare better than others. Prices have fallen so much already from the peak that there is value to be had. A large negative influence was the lack of public confidence in the banking system; this might change as a result of the emergency budget. In any event, the banks will start lending in a concerted manner in the next 12 months. There's a good few first timers out there even right now who are loan approved and ready to buy.

ntlbell

cls wrote: »

Those with common sense do not take their advice from the internet!! Those with common sense realise that the internet is full of lies, ignorance and bullsh!t. A girl in work told me she changed her childs medication, which was prescribed by a real life doctor, based on "advice" from the internet :eek:

Usually people with common sense will take their advice from a number of sources and do their own research.

who do you think people should listen to when purchasing a home?

a financial adviser in a bank?

an EA?

A mortgage broker?

friends?

news papers?

The government?