Did we all go property mad?

Laminations

While I'm in no way denying that people invested large amounts of their money and time into houses, is it really true that we all became big greedy speculators??

According to stats on the numbers of house owners and number of mortgage owners, things haven't changed much in 15 years. Almost the same % of the population has wanted/needed a house, and it is not the huge percentage many people (who like to diffuse the blame evenly) would like us believe.

I'd be interested if people could post figures on numbers of mortgages taken per year, number of second/third/fourth properties, number of people with second/third/fourth properties. Some people did get greedy but I stil reckon that house prices were in some part kept artificially high as the huge amount being built were drip fed onto the market. The same percetage of people it seems still needed a home in 2006 compared to 1991. The only thing I can see that went mad, were the house prices

jpb1974

We all went property mad!!

Maybe if you had your economist hat on you could say "yes" but I'd take issue with the "all" bit here... you really can't tar everyone with the same brush. There are people that bought houses as investment properties and there are people that bought a house as a home.

Speaking in regard to those who bought homes - the economy was good, people were settled in Ireland, people felt secure in their jobs... it seemed like a pretty good situation for people to invest in homes.

Government policy certainly didn't help property prices and the average punter never really knew whether prices were going to keep rising or not... so they couldn't really speculate on the future they just made a choice based on the conditions at the time.

Unless you had a crystal ball then the Average Joe couldn't be expected to live their life holding back... for many having your own home and raising your family in it is a fundamental aspiration in life and you can't blame people for that.

Holy Warlord

I saw the prices, so I did not.

Laminations

jpb1974 wrote: »

Maybe if you had your economist hat on you could say "yes" but I'd take issue with the "all" bit here... you really can't tar everyone with the same brush. There are people that bought houses as investment properties and there are people that bought a house as a home.

Read the post, thats my point - granted I should have phrased the thread title as 'Did we all go property mad?'

This thread is based on my proposition that we DID NOT all go property mad

jpb1974

Apologies there Laminations

Nodin

It helps the idea that "we are all to blame", which of course is a bit of a nonsense. Irish people have - certainly in my lifetime - always been fixated on home ownership. Not everyone got in debt for two gaffs and a pad in Bulgaria - most just went for a three bedroom which they bought as a home, not an investment.

yawnstretch

You can blame people for not doing basic math.

If your house costs more than you will ever be able to repay (even in a good economy) then you have no business buying.

The end.

I could have bought property on a number of occasions but it just didnt add up.

Now these irresponsible fools are dragging us all to hell.

thirtythirty

Holy Warlord wrote: »

I saw the prices, so I did not.

+1

Typical Dublin property ad:

Price: €759,000
Location: Barrow Street
Floorspace: 3 square metres
Features: Bathroom / kitchen, bar stool, closet/bedroom
Other Notes: You HAVE to buy this cosy, easily maintained beautiful home in the heart of Dublin. If you don't, you'll never get on the ladder, & your other half will leave you for someone in a €36,000 job who has just had the foresight to buy an asset currently worth 1 MILLION EURO, and is therefore a millionaire.

Laminations

yawnstretch wrote: »

You can blame people for not doing basic math.

If your house costs more than you will ever be able to repay (even in a good economy) then you have no business buying.

The end.

I could have bought property on a number of occasions but it just didnt add up.

Now these irresponsible fools are dragging us all to hell.

39% have mortgagaes (as of 2006), 5% of mortgages are in arrears - it seems most people are able to pay their mortgage. Most people are also quite happy to pay their mortgage, its the part where we pay for private investors and bond holders gambles that starts to get people worked up, and its those irresponsible fools, failing to take responsibility for their poor investment decisions that are dragging us down.

jpb1974

If your house costs more than you will ever be able to repay (even in a good economy) then you have no business buying.

Assuming you are talking about home owners and not landlords I doubt anyone bought a house during the boom years that they couldn't afford to repay at that point in time... that would make no sense at all.

Even if someone were to buy a house during a slump when house prices are low that's not to say they could still afford to pay it tomorrow if they were made redundant.

You're sort of indirectly implying that people should save up the entire cost before they purchase a home... a whilst that might be good... it really isn't practical.

Nodin

yawnstretch wrote: »

You can blame people for not doing basic math.

If your house costs more than you will ever be able to repay (even in a good economy) then you have no business buying.

The end.

I could have bought property on a number of occasions but it just didnt add up.

Now these irresponsible fools are dragging us all to hell.

The majority of debt has been incurred by a small number of people, not private homeowners, afaik.....

yawnstretch

jpb1974 wrote: »

Assuming you are talking about home owners and not landlords I doubt anyone bought a house during the boom years that they couldn't afford to repay at that point in time... that would make no sense at all.

Even if someone were to buy a house during a slump when house prices are low that's not to say they could still afford to pay it tomorrow if they were made redundant.

You're sort of indirectly implying that people should save up the entire cost before they purchase a home... a whilst that might be good... it really isn't practical.

Not the entire cost - but at least a decent percentage so that you have an idea how long it takes to earn that amount. Sure your wages will go up but most people just took the piss entirely.

Laminations

yawnstretch wrote: »

Not the entire cost - but at least a decent percentage so that you have an idea how long it takes to earn that amount. Sure your wages will go up but most people just took the piss entirely.

Most people?

Did you look at the table of figures posted in the OP?

Look at the comparisons between % homes owned outright vs. owned with mortgage and look at the percentages of ROI compared to NI.

jpb1974

Not the entire cost - but at least a decent percentage so that you have an idea how long it takes to earn that amount. Sure your wages will go up but most people just took the piss entirely.

Easy access to loans and 100% Mortgages didn't help matters... but the reality of the matter is that even if I paid for 50% of my home myself then I'd still be under serious pressure to pay the remaining €135K if I was made redundant in the morning.

PeterIanStaker

Yeh I feel guilty now I shouldn't have bought all those houses. What was I thinking?

(Just joking, I actually went back to college in an attempt to upskill/ride this out, so no "WE" didnt do anything. More collective guilt bulls hit)

yawnstretch

Laminations wrote: »

Most people?

Did you look at the table of figures posted in the OP?

Look at the comparisons between % homes owned outright vs. owned with mortgage and look at the percentages of ROI compared to NI.

Eh yeah - people in ROI bought like people in NI even though the house prices were rising - because they are idiots.

Why would you continue buying houses when the prices don't make sense? People in ROI didn't do their homework and just blindly bought.

I could have, I didn't. These buyers who paid way over the odds are to blame and should be suffering way more than me. Selling our country to EU is an utter disaster long term. The EU may appear to have our best interests at heart today but Ireland is not the same as continental europe.

There are major differences and these differences will cause us pain if we go under their rule.

ei.sdraob

Laminations wrote: »

figures on numbers of mortgages taken per year, number of second/third/fourth properties, number of people with second/third/fourth properties.

Hi, I posted these before, central bank have a wealth of info on the subject

see latest june 2009 report

Here are some highlights




whats worse is that the centralbank was aware of a huge percentage (~30%) of "buy to lets" as early as 2006, and of course they did nothing

see here

some highlights

centralbank wrote:

The rise in household debt in Ireland has been amongst the most
rapid. When Ireland joined Economic and Monetary Union
(EMU) in 1999, household debt was about 60 per cent of
personal disposable income; by end-2006 this ratio had more
than doubled to 147 per cent, despite a strong rise in income.
Borrowing for residential mortgages has been the main driving
force behind this increase, with mortgage debt increasing its
share of household debt from 75 per cent to 83 per cent over
the period.

:eek: that didnt sent any alarm bells ringing for whoever wrote this report in centralbank :mad:

some more love

centralbank wrote:

From time to time, concerns have been expressed that
investors are contributing to the inflation of house prices and
that, as a result, first-time buyers are being crowded out of the
housing market. Such concerns were raised in the first ‘Bacon
Report’ and led to changes in stamp duties and the abolition
of interest deductibility from rental income by investors for
tax purposes. While these measures were effective in reducing
house-price inflation, which dropped from 20.6 per cent in
January 2001 to 2.4 per cent in January 2002, they led to very
sharp increases in rents and the interest offset against rent was
restored in the 2002 Budget. More recently, investors have
again been cited for fuelling house-price increases in 2006 and
making it difficult for first-time buyers to get onto the
property ladder.

and on page 136 (8of18)

see this shocker

December 2006 % of buy to let = 24.6%


clearly alot of people went mad into investment, the central bank of course did not act on their own finding describing this tulip mania, weep and cry

so much for a "soft landing" and "its da lehmans" and "we weren't warned"

Laminations

Hi ei, I always appreciate your input, you provide great figures for any debate. In this instance you have accurately shown that billions were invested in construction stock and that the percentage increase in buy-to-let properties sky rocketed during the boom.

Does this translate into 'many or most people went property mad'? We dont know the numbers of people involved in the figures you show. It may have been a small number of highly wealthy individuals involved in buying up multiple properties for the rental market.

€33bn in buy-to-let mortgages does not translate into 100,000 individuals each taking out a €330,000 mortgage, it more likely indicates that a far fewer number of people took out multiple mortgages.

I just think that rather than the myth that we all got greedy, it is more accurate to suggest that a few of us got very greedy.



I'll put it this way, If I went to my local store and bought up all the bananas, you could not conclude from the number of bananas purchased that everyone in my area was going bananas

ei.sdraob

Laminations wrote: »

Hi ei, I always appreciate your input, you provide great figures for any debate. In this instance you have accurately shown that billions were invested in construction stock and that the percentage increase in buy-to-let properties sky rocketed during the boom.

Does this translate into 'many or most people went property mad'? We dont know the numbers of people involved in the figures you show. It may have been a small number of highly wealthy individuals involved in buying up multiple properties for the rental market.

€33bn in buy-to-let mortgages does not translate into 100,000 individuals each taking out a €330,000 mortgage, it more likely indicates that a far fewer number of people took out multiple mortgages.

I just think that rather than the myth that we all got greedy, it is more accurate to suggest that a few of us got very greedy.



I'll put it this way, If I went to my local store and bought up all the bananas, you could not conclude from the number of bananas purchased that everyone in my area was going bananas

Thats the thing there is no away of finding out exactly how many people caused this mess or hold them responsible for that matter, it probably didnt take that many to get us in trouble

thats why I am so against bailouts, since it rescues the reckless

whether its a banker or a BTLer or a developer, they should all rot in hell, they took a risk it should not have been made our problem


we know whoever took out a BTL was definitely gambling, but everyone who took on a mortgage from 2001-2008 was also borrowing/paying over the odds and hence adding a little to the fire. of course these people are not as bad as the likes of Frank 40 homes Fahey

Liam Byrne

Laminations wrote: »

According to stats on the numbers of house owners and number of mortgage owners, things haven't changed much in 15 years. Almost the same % of the population has wanted/needed a house, and it is not the huge percentage many people (who like to diffuse the blame evenly) would like us believe.

10 out of 10, Laminations!

I've given up actually discussing the deception and deflection about "we", "everyone" and "all" because anyone who spouts that is talking through their backside; at Scofflaw's suggestion I just put the retort in my sig and rolled my eyes.

If people came on here and said that "everyone wants to meet and marry someone of the opposite sex" it would be viewed as "politically incorrect" usage of the word "everyone", but FF apologists want that colloquial phrasing to become the norm.

Now you have provided factual proof and figures to back up what ordinary people knew all along.

I reckon this thread should be made a sticky so that those lazily - and misleadingly - saying "everyone" can be made eat their lying* words!

OK - "fibbing" because they didn't have access to all of the relevant information that we do now, blah, blah, blah......

Liam Byrne

ei.sdraob wrote: »

December 2006 % of buy to let = 24.6%

Is that a percentage of sales/purchases, or the percentage of discreet individuals who bought for that purpose ?

There's no point making the font bigger if you don't state precisely what it is.

If it's the former, then for all we know it could have been - let's do a Lenihan and pluck a figure from the air - 2,000 people buying them, and you can't tar a population of 4.5 million based on the actions of 2,000.

Laminations

Liam Byrne wrote: »

Is that a percentage of sales/purchases, or the percentage of discreet individuals who bought for that purpose ?

There's no point making the font bigger if you don't state precisely what it is.

If it's the former, then for all we know it could have been - let's do a Lenihan and pluck a figure from the air - 2,000 people buying them, and you can't tar a population of 4.5 million based on the actions of 2,000.

Exactly, like I said Liam, if I suddenly increased my consumption of bananas to a point where my local store showed bananas as making up 24.6% of fruit purchases, they would have every right to wonder 'what the hell is going on with the banans?' but they'd have no grounds to use the % as justification to say everyone in my locality was mad about bananas

Liam Byrne

Laminations wrote: »

Exactly, like I said Liam, if I suddenly increased my consumption of bananas to a point where my local store showed bananas as making up 24.6% of fruit purchases, they would have every right to wonder 'what the hell is going on with the banans?' but they'd have no grounds to use the % as justification to say everyone in my locality was mad about bananas

I know.

I'm just surprised at ei.sdraorb for posting a statistic that - on it's own - means nothing and gives no info.

Laminations

Well it shows there was indeed property madness but it tells us nothing of the culprits nor the prevalence of such madness

Callan57

I get really annoyed with the 'we were all at it' ... we were NOT neither I nor any member of my family got involved in the speculative bubble that was the Irish property market.
I own my own home & did think in 2006 of possibly moving but it was plainly obvious that no way were the houses on offer anywhere near value for money so I decided to stay put ... I might resussitate my plans now though!.
What really annoyed me during the 'boom' was that speculators were allowed to drive prices to ridiculous heights & made home ownership almost impossible for the ordinary person/couple who wanted to establish a home and start a family.
I sincerly hope the Irish people have learned a lesson

Laminations

Just thinking about this, I only know one person out of my circel of friends and acquaintences who has a property they are renting. However they didn't buy-to-let, they had to rent out the house they bought for themselves after salary cuts and move back in with parents so they could keep paying the mortgage.

If it was so prevalent and we all became little landlords, you'd swear I'd know more people who were

meglome

I posted this in another thread but it relevant here too.

meglome wrote: »

According to Prime Time last night... There are 789,000 private residential mortgages in this country to a value of 177.4 billion Euro. 40,492 of these are in at least 90 days of arrears to the value of 7.8 billion Euro.

So if our property debt was 33 billion Euro in 2000 it has increased massively by 144.4 billion in 10 years. So yes we went mental.

I appreciate that many people did not buy into this bull but the majority voted for FF and their policy's consistently. So the mob got what they thought they wanted.

politicsdude

i had the bank on to me one time asking if i wanted a mortgage at the time i was getting about 25k a year and had maybe 10k in the bank and the ****ers were trying to convence me that i should get a gigantic mortgage .. that it would be a safe investment etc .... hah! good job i told em where to go

Liam Byrne

meglome wrote: »

I appreciate that many people did not buy into this bull but the majority voted for FF and their policy's consistently. So the mob got what they thought they wanted.

Firstly, the majority didn't vote for FF.

Secondly,

There are 789,000 private residential mortgages in this country to a value of 177.4 billion Euro. 40,492 of these are in at least 90 days of arrears to the value of 7.8 billion Euro.

.....does not show how many INDIVIDUAL MORTGAGE HOLDERS there are, and how many of those are single-property.....i.e. a feckin' home - the reason for property in the first place.

If someone comes up with statistics about remortgaged original homes to buy a second property or how many of those 789,000 are individuals (say for example 290,000 normal "we wanted a home" mortgages plus 5,000 "property-mad speculators" with 100 houses each), then fair enough, we can analyse it properly then and look at its significance.

But until we have THOSE figures the figure of 789,000 is completely meaningless and out-of-context.

meglome

Liam Byrne wrote: »

Firstly, the majority didn't vote for FF.

Secondly,

Okay then. The largest percentage of the electorate voted for FF. I'm sure that makes it all better.

Liam Byrne wrote: »

.....does not show how many INDIVIDUAL MORTGAGE HOLDERS there are, and how many of those are single-property.....i.e. a feckin' home - the reason for property in the first place.

If someone comes up with statistics about remortgaged original homes to buy a second property or how many of those 789,000 are individuals (say for example 290,000 normal "we wanted a home" mortgages plus 5,000 "property-mad speculators" with 100 houses each), then fair enough, we can analyse it properly then and look at its significance.

But until we have THOSE figures the figure of 789,000 is completely meaningless and out-of-context.

We don't know how many individual mortgage holders there are so you're correct it doesn't give us the full picture. Going by my own friends the majority have an over priced house, some more overpriced than others. So obviously it's not 789,000 individuals but I very much doubt it's only 100,000 either if my own friends are anything to go by. It's still going to be a large number of people. And it's also a large number of people who even if they didn't take out an inflated mortgage supported the government's policy's because they were bought off by whatever government give-away. Which leads me to repeat we got what we deserved in many ways.

Liam Byrne

meglome wrote: »

Okay then. The largest percentage of the electorate voted for FF. I'm sure that makes it all better.

It's simply a truthful, non-spun fact, a concept which has been sadly lacking in this country for the last few years.

meglome wrote: »

We don't know how many individual mortgage holders there are so you're correct it doesn't give us the full picture.

Good that you acknowledge that.

meglome wrote: »

Going by my own friends the majority have an over priced house, some more overpriced than others.

Going by my own friends the majority don't (at least, not significantly overpriced, because I don't know if they paid €100 more than they "should" have).

Strange that. Maybe I hang around with like-minded people who don't waste cash.

meglome wrote: »

So obviously it's not 789,000 individuals but I very much doubt it's only 100,000 either if my own friends are anything to go by.

I never said it might be as low as 100,000; I think the figure I threw out there was 289,000.......do you "very much doubt" that it might be around that mark too ? I don't know the figure, but why take it lower than the one I suggested in order to make the argument appear ludicrous ?

Why not respond to the possibility or otherwise that 289,000 may be reasonably accurate ?

meglome wrote: »

It's still going to be a large number of people. And it's also a large number of people who even if they didn't take out an inflated mortgage supported the government's policy's because they were bought off by whatever government give-away.

OK - so you threw in a post containing figures that is discredited, so now you're trying a completely different argument ?

What about all the many, many people (60% of first-preference votes) who weren't bought off by government promises ? They may have gotten some of those before the boom crashed, but they still voted against that government ? So how can you claim they were "bought off" ? It's a ridiculous attempt at a back-up argument!

meglome wrote: »

Which leads me to repeat we got what we deserved in many ways.

Based on very flaky argument which doesn't stand up to even the most basic scrutiny.

You might have been better off trying to find the actual relevant figures and sticking to the single argument.

Laminations

meglome wrote: »

I posted this in another thread but it relevant here too.

According to Prime Time last night... There are 789,000 private residential mortgages in this country to a value of 177.4 billion Euro. 40,492 of these are in at least 90 days of arrears to the value of 7.8 billion Euro.

So if our property debt was 33 billion Euro in 2000 it has increased massively by 144.4 billion in 10 years. So yes we went mental.

I appreciate that many people did not buy into this bull but the majority voted for FF and their policy's consistently. So the mob got what they thought they wanted.

So the 40,000 in arrears equates to about 5% of mortgage holders. How does this show that most people went mad and bit off more than they could chew when we still (even in these extraordinarily difficult financial times) have 90+ % of people paying their mortgage?

Also the people who voted for FF back in 2007 didnt do so with the full details of their incompetence and mismangement. The extent of the problems and FFs involvement in them has only really emerged in the last 3 years. People supporting FF nowadays are very different to that 'majority' you keep referring to.

meglome

Liam Byrne wrote: »

Going by my own friends the majority don't (at least, not significantly overpriced, because I don't know if they paid €100 more than they "should" have).

Strange that. Maybe I hang around with like-minded people who don't waste cash.

Maybe it's a Dublin city vs elsewhere difference. And by 'should' I mean sensible inflation driven increases over what people paid back in 2000, before the bubble began.

Liam Byrne wrote: »

I never said it might be as low as 100,000; I think the figure I threw out there was 289,000.......do you "very much doubt" that it might be around that mark too ? I don't know the figure, but why take it lower than the one I suggested in order to make the argument appear ludicrous ?

Why not respond to the possibility or otherwise that 289,000 may be reasonably accurate ?

Not saying you did. But it might be 500,000 people too. Most of the people I know only have one house. Whatever it is it's still going to be a significant number of the adult population.

Liam Byrne wrote: »

What about all the many, many people (60% of first-preference votes) who weren't bought off by government promises ? They may have gotten some of those before the boom crashed, but they still voted against that government ? So how can you claim they were "bought off" ? It's a ridiculous attempt at a back-up argument!

As much as I believe the other party's would not have been as bad a Fianna Fail, FG and Labour promised the same type of giveaways that FF did. So there's no doubt the majority voted for high spending and low taxes. The same high spending and low taxes that caused much of the problem.

Liam Byrne wrote: »

Based on very flaky argument which doesn't stand up to even the most basic scrutiny.

You might have been better off trying to find the actual relevant figures and sticking to the single argument.

Is my position clearer now?

Laminations wrote: »

So the 40,000 in arrears equates to about 5% of mortgage holders. How does this show that most people went mad and bit off more than they could chew when we still (even in these extraordinarily difficult financial times) have 90+ % of people paying their mortgage?

Also the people who voted for FF back in 2007 didnt do so with the full details of their incompetence and mismangement. The extent of the problems and FFs involvement in them has only really emerged in the last 3 years. People supporting FF nowadays are very different to that 'majority' you keep referring to.

Look the numbers involved... 33 billion to 177.4 billion.

We're not all equally responsible for the mess but collectively we are responsible. I truly want things to change and I'm very worried that by blaming anyone but ourselves things won't change.

Liam Byrne

meglome wrote: »

We're not all equally responsible for the mess but collectively we are responsible. I truly want things to change and I'm very worried that by blaming anyone but ourselves things won't change.

Well by blaming people who had no hand, act or part in it, solely because they lived in the same country as the idiots who did, you're doing even worse.

It's like having a gang of teenage thugs in an estate that do vandalism; if you then implicate the decent teenagers - solely because they happen to live in the same estate - and force them to pay for the damage then you'll piss them off and cause them to rebel where previously they wouldn't have considered doing anything of the sort.

If you're going to be implicated you may as well commit the crime.

meglome

Liam Byrne wrote: »

Well by blaming people who had no hand, act or part in it, solely because they lived in the same country as the idiots who did, you're doing even worse.

It's like having a gang of teenage thugs in an estate that do vandalism; if you then implicate the decent teenagers - solely because they happen to live in the same estate - and force them to pay for the damage then you'll piss them off and cause them to rebel where previously they wouldn't have considered doing anything of the sort.

If you're going to be implicated you may as well commit the crime.

As I said the majority did vote for policy's that involved high spending and low taxes. Sure the books were being cooked and that's down to the government. I personally had no idea just how overpaid some of the public service was. I think most of us didn't realise just how bloated the government had become. So we are not all equally responsible but there are very few people IMHO that can wash their hands of any involvement.

Liam Byrne

meglome wrote: »

As I said the majority did vote for policy's that involved high spending and low taxes.

As you said....and then retracted when it was pointed out that you were wrong.

Now you're claiming it again ?

meglome wrote: »

there are very few people IMHO that can wash their hands of any involvement.

You can have your opinion, but you haven't given a single valid reason why you have that opinion.

meglome

Liam Byrne wrote: »

As you said....and then retracted when it was pointed out that you were wrong.

Now you're claiming it again ?

I'm my last few posts I clarified two things. 1. The largest percentage of the electorate voted for FF. and 2. The opposition parties in the main also had policy's that involved high spending and low taxes. This means the majority did vote for high spending and low taxes.

Liam Byrne wrote: »

You can have your opinion, but you haven't given a single valid reason why you have that opinion.

Since as a fact the majority voted for party's that advocated high spending and low taxes the majority have to take some responsibility. Is that clear enough?

Liam Byrne

meglome wrote: »

Since as a fact the majority voted for party's that advocated high spending and low taxes the majority have to take some responsibility. Is that clear enough?

High spending in itself is not a problem; it depends what they spend it on.

meglome

Liam Byrne wrote: »

High spending in itself is not a problem; it depends what they spend it on.

Very true. The amount of waste was staggering.

bradlente

Waste including the salaries/pensions these guys are and will be picking up for the mismanagement of our country.I don't agree with this "sure you voted for em" argument to collectively blame the society.Vote or no vote no one expected the heads of our government to squander the soveirgnty of this land in the way they have.

ei.sdraob

Liam Byrne wrote: »

Is that a percentage of sales/purchases, or the percentage of discreet individuals who bought for that purpose ?

click on the link and see the page referenced

its a percentage of all mortgages used for Buy-to-Let as compared to mortgages used for primary residencies, there was another few % for holiday homes

this of course does not include mortgages for overseas properties... that be an interesting figure.

ei.sdraob

politicsdude wrote: »

i had the bank on to me one time asking if i wanted a mortgage at the time i was getting about 25k a year and had maybe 10k in the bank and the ****ers were trying to convence me that i should get a gigantic mortgage .. that it would be a safe investment etc .... hah! good job i told em where to go

If you go thru central bank documents you would see the BTL figure grew by leaps and bounds as a proportion of total mortgage lending which itself was also increasing