Estate Agents

Bill2673

I'm surprised they don't get their share of the blame for their role in the whole property fiasco......

If the bankers were grossly negligent at the macro level, then surely estate agents were at the micro level.

I could go through a long list of things I saw estate agents do that were highly questionable.

To mention one: I was told by an estate agent in 2005 that houses in my estate would "never sell again for less than €300,000".....was told that as a matter of fact ......its only going one way. They are now around €230k five years later. I know its not the worst example, but its one that sticks in my mind that represents the estate agents line that the only way was up.

I think they did feed at the trough biggo and without doubt contributed to the property frenzy. You might say, well, what do you expect.... But you could say the same about banks also.

Caoimhín

It was up to an individual to believe or disbelieve what they were told, if a farmer tried to sell me a turnip for €500 as they would only go "one way" i would have told him to go hop.

You do have a point though in that the Estate agents were given almost unlimited access to the media outlets often with their personal opinion reported as fact.

kmick

I have always found that you cant believe what someone says if that person is saying those things to try and sell you something.
e.g.
"one careful lady owner"
"your broadband will be 15Mb"
"your home is an investment"

You obviously felt the statement was fishy at that time. Trust your instincts.

Wicklowrider

They were responsible for a lot of the problems and in no small way. They should be in the same filthy bracket as the bankers and developers.

Late '90's and early 00's we thought of moving and viewed several houses. The estate agents were showing to groups of people playing one off the other - fair enough so far. Then they'd lie through their teeth that one couple had bid a few thousand over the asking price. Before you left the viewing the price had typically been raised by €15 -€20K.
Now the people who had bid higher would go back to their banks and most times couldn't raise the extra cash BUT the house price remained inflated.
Also saw the reverse side when they were working for their friends. They would chance their arms and use pressure on the seller, especially older people who'd paid off their mortages, in order to get a house cheap for their friends or clients who were regular investor buyers.

Edit - anyone know what the bulb icon on top of this post is? don't know how I put it there!

optocynic

Wicklowrider wrote: »

They were responsible for a lot of the problems and in no small way. They should be in the same filthy bracket as the bankers and developers.

Late '90's and early 00's we thought of moving and viewed several houses. The estate agents were showing to groups of people playing one off the other - fair enough so far. Then they'd lie through their teeth that one couple had bid a few thousand over the asking price. Before you left the viewing the price had typically been raised by €15 -€20K.
Now the people who had bid higher would go back to their banks and most times couldn't raise the extra cash BUT the house price remained inflated.
Also saw the reverse side when they were working for their friends. They would chance their arms and use pressure on the seller, especially older people who'd paid off their mortages, in order to get a house cheap for their friends or clients who were regular investor buyers.

I have no doubt this happened, and gazumping was widespread. It was tried on me several times. Luckily, I was expecting it, and knew when to call their bluff.
But, is this any different than shops charging whatever they can get for goods and services. Unfortunately, we all paid these inflated prices. We enabled them to do it.

cson

You can find nearly any group to apportion some blame to if you wanted to [Not saying you're wrong OP].

How about the Times & Indo with their property porn? I'd rate that as worse than the Estate Agents tbh.

syklops

My father always says:"You never ask a Barber whether you need a haircut". So why would you trust a house evaluation given to you by an EA?

Wicklowrider

optocynic wrote: »

But, is this any different than shops charging whatever they can get for goods and services. Unfortunately, we all paid these inflated prices. We enabled them to do it.

My opinion is yes - its a lot different because the greed driven scum were to a large part responsible for bringing our economy down. A shop keeper over pricing his wares leaves you with the choice of buying elsewhere but a person seeking to put a roof over their head had no choice.

Ash.J.Williams

Bill2673 wrote: »

I'm surprised they don't get their share of the blame for their role in the whole property fiasco......

If the bankers were grossly negligent at the macro level, then surely estate agents were at the micro level.

I could go through a long list of things I saw estate agents do that were highly questionable.

To mention one: I was told by an estate agent in 2005 that houses in my estate would "never sell again for less than €300,000".....was told that as a matter of fact ......its only going one way. They are now around €230k five years later. I know its not the worst example, but its one that sticks in my mind that represents the estate agents line that the only way was up.

I think they did feed at the trough biggo and without doubt contributed to the property frenzy. You might say, well, what do you expect.... But you could say the same about banks also.

I would disagree, if people are stupid enough to buy magic beans then let them suffer....Estate agents should have been treated like the shopping channel or street hustlers.

drBill

Their job is to sell as much of their product as they can, for as much money as they can. You charge what the market will bear. I don't think its fair to blame them for doing this. Ok, there were some underhand goings on such as gazumping, information leaking, etc but you'll get that behaviour in any industry.

The real problem is that there was an environment which allowed this behaviour to thrive i.e. cheap credit and careless lending. So more people got bigger and bigger mortgages, which pushed house prices up, which pushed wages up, which pushed house prices up more, which made banks dish out even more credit, etc, etc.

Estate agents and builders account for about 1% of the problem. The banks and government who were supposed to govern and regulate them are most to blame.

Japer

cson wrote: »

How about the Times & Indo with their property porn? I'd rate that as worse than the Estate Agents tbh.

+1. Do you remember the property suppliment that came with the Sunday Indo, and in particular the rubbish spouted by the editor of that suppliment. I forget his name but can picture his little photo. Remember how he often used to spout c**p in his colums - I remember numerous whole columns devoted to this - about the famine, and a memorial to same ; and how great the Irish investors ( now in nama ) were who went to the finest hotels in London + raised thre tricolour over them ; about "croppy boy" etc. He bears a lot of the responsibility of egging people on in what he wrote. Too many people were led to believe prices would only go up and up. Wonder where he is now ?

Fighting Irish

Japer wrote: »

+1. Do you remember the property suppliment that came with the Sunday Indo, and in particular the rubbish spouted by the editor of that suppliment. I forget his name but can picture his little photo. Remember how he often used to spout c**p in his colums - I remember numerous whole columns devoted to this - about the famine, and a memorial to same ; and how great the Irish investors ( now in nama ) were who went to the finest hotels in London + raised thre tricolour over them ; about "croppy boy" etc. He bears a lot of the responsibility of egging people on in what he wrote. Wonder where he is now ?

:rolleyes:

So can i blame ford for egging me on with their TV ads?

Ash.J.Williams

Remember in "the savage eye" "sallins......a river runs through it....."

Japer

Fighting Irish wrote: »

:rolleyes:

So can i blame ford for egging me on with their TV ads?

that fellow who wrote the editorial crossed the line, in that it (a) was editorial, not adds and (b) talked the whole Irish market up to believe it was our just right to go out in to the world and borrow and buy property, our day had come, property was only going to go up etc.

Bill2673

cson wrote: »

You can find nearly any group to apportion some blame to if you wanted to [Not saying you're wrong OP].

How about the Times & Indo with their property porn? I'd rate that as worse than the Estate Agents tbh.

Don't forget RTE with their property shows, about renovating houses, about buying houses overseas, about first time buyers......and then turning around two years later and telling us that the George Lee was a voice in the wilderness predicting the property boom.

Bill2673

optocynic wrote: »

I have no doubt this happened, and gazumping was widespread. It was tried on me several times. Luckily, I was expecting it, and knew when to call their bluff.
But, is this any different than shops charging whatever they can get for goods and services. Unfortunately, we all paid these inflated prices. We enabled them to do it.

There's two differences:

Firstly when you go into a shop or restaurant the price is on the tin.....whereas with a house you never knew what the price was, or if you were being spoofed or not.

But more importantly, when I go into a Spar to buy a Mars bar, the moustachioued man behind the counter is not telling me that my Mars bar is going to rise steadily over time.

Fighting Irish

Japer wrote: »

that fellow who wrote the editorial crossed the line, in that it (a) was editorial, not adds and (b) talked the whole Irish market up to believe it was our just right to go out in to the world and borrow and buy property, our day had come, property was only going to go up etc.

Only "stupid people/people who were desperate" fell for it

Fighting Irish

Bill2673 wrote: »

There's two differences:

Firstly when you go into a shop or restaurant the price is on the tin.....whereas with a house you never knew what the price was, or if you were being spoofed or not.

But more importantly, when I go into a Spar to buy a Mars bar, the moustachioued man behind the counter is not telling me that my Mars bar is going to rise steadily over time.

:rolleyes:

Bill2673

cson wrote: »

You can find nearly any group to apportion some blame to if you wanted to [Not saying you're wrong OP].

.

I wouldn't blame the fishermen, in fairness to them.........they more or less kept to themselves the whole way through and focussed on the fish......cod, john dory and the like. They deserve some credit for that I suppose. The people in Killybegs, and Dunmore East, we salute ye.

Sleepy

Two cures for EA behaviour:

A flat fee for representing a seller rather than a percentage of the sale price.
A national database recording actual selling price of houses.

Both should be extremely easy to implement. A piece of legislation for the first barring EA's from charging percentages. A legal requirement for solicitors to record the change of ownership of a house and the particulars of the sale via a web-based application for the second. If the development of the second went much beyond 50k to develop and implement nationally I'd be surprised given that the admin for the site could easily be carried out by existing Department of Environment employees.

drBill

Bill2673 wrote: »

But more importantly, when I go into a Spar to buy a Mars bar, the moustachioued man behind the counter is not telling me that my Mars bar is going to rise steadily over time.

"I hear the price of this Mars bar is going to rise and rise and rise"
"And who told you that?"
"The bloke who sells them."
"Well that's another fine mess..."

dan_d

I remember a Mars Bar being 20p.....:P

A friend said to me recently her older brother, who is stuck deeply in NE (and is an accountant:rolleyes:), was talking to her about the property thing a few days ago. He said if he could do it again, he wouldn't have bought (which is fair enough), but he also made the point that all his generation heard for 10 years - 10 whole years - was "buy,buy,buy, get your foot on the property ladder, now's the best time, buy,buy,buy, they'll never be cheaper, you're stupid if you don't buy, go out quick, buy, buy, quickly......"

It doesn't take away from the fact that people apparently lost all sense of reason. But you have to think - if you've never known any different, this is normality to you. Of course there were those who hedged their bets and took a step back. But media and advertising are designed to appeal to the masses - and well, they did.Nowadays, there are kids out there in college who have never, ever known anything other than ipods, Ugg Boots, shopping trips to NY, credit cards, mobile phones and unlimited bank accounts. That's life to them. They've never heard anything different. That's the picture the media has created for them, aided and abetted by their parents, many of whom bought into this picture, because they though "well, this is the norm!!". Look at the impact the media is currently having in terms of the recession. Look how loud their voices are when it comes to spreading doom and gloom. How many people have you heard say in the last 6 months, that they wish it would all stop and people would shut up talking about misery all the time, it's all we ever hear. Look at the number of threads started on Boards with people frantically saying they've heard something is happening, should they withdraw all their money from a bank, or whatever. Hysteria. The number of rows that errupt in threads because people have posted links to newspaper articles, and everyone just reads the headline, assumes the content, and jumps into attack. Mass hysteria can be generated using media outlets. Never underestimate the power of advertising.

As I said, there is a level of personal responsibility in all this. But a large proportion of responsibility does need to be taken by the papers, who produced MASSIVE property supplements every week, the banks who aggressively advertised mortgages and property, and the Estate agents and brokers who played the same games. Media and advertising works for a reason.And in the case of the property boom, it worked then too.

optocynic

Bill2673 wrote: »

There's two differences:

Firstly when you go into a shop or restaurant the price is on the tin.....whereas with a house you never knew what the price was, or if you were being spoofed or not.

But more importantly, when I go into a Spar to buy a Mars bar, the moustachioued man behind the counter is not telling me that my Mars bar is going to rise steadily over time.

Well, I never planned to eat my house after a 5-a-side football game:D

ToxicPaddy

Sleepy wrote: »

Two cures for EA behaviour:

A flat fee for representing a seller rather than a percentage of the sale price.
A national database recording actual selling price of houses.

Both should be extremely easy to implement. A piece of legislation for the first barring EA's from charging percentages. A legal requirement for solicitors to record the change of ownership of a house and the particulars of the sale via a web-based application for the second. If the development of the second went much beyond 50k to develop and implement nationally I'd be surprised given that the admin for the site could easily be carried out by existing Department of Environment employees.

I think you're being hopeful there.. anything to do with any government department is going to cost millions and years to implement because:

• Specialist "Advisors" need to be brought in
• Legal Challenges by the EA's as to the legality of it all
• Discussions in the Dail because TD's are being lobbied by the IAVI and their cronies
• Agreement on design and layout by a special panel of "Experts"
• Advertising for tenders for the design and implementation
• Counting all the money that comes in the big brown envelopes that accompany said tenders
• Time and effort discovering ways to launder said money that accompanied said tenders in big brown envelopes so the CAB wont find it.
• Tenders for the design of a nice looking colourful logo and stationary to accompany said logo
• Agreeing on nice looking stationary and colourful logo
• Advertising product
• Implementation of product
• Maintenance and Support contracts
• Setting up a toothless, worthless governing body with absolutely no powers to force such a product to be used by EA's
• ahh hell.. Ive given up trying to think what else.. :rolleyes:

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

Ash.J.Williams

dan_d wrote: »

I remember a Mars Bar being 20p.....:P

A friend said to me recently her older brother, who is stuck deeply in NE (and is an accountant:rolleyes:), was talking to her about the property thing a few days ago. He said if he could do it again, he wouldn't have bought (which is fair enough), but he also made the point that all his generation heard for 10 years - 10 whole years - was "buy,buy,buy, get your foot on the property ladder, now's the best time, buy,buy,buy, they'll never be cheaper, you're stupid if you don't buy, go out quick, buy, buy, quickly......"

It doesn't take away from the fact that people apparently lost all sense of reason. But you have to think - if you've never known any different, this is normality to you. Of course there were those who hedged their bets and took a step back. But media and advertising are designed to appeal to the masses - and well, they did.Nowadays, there are kids out there in college who have never, ever known anything other than ipods, Ugg Boots, shopping trips to NY, credit cards, mobile phones and unlimited bank accounts. That's life to them. They've never heard anything different. That's the picture the media has created for them, aided and abetted by their parents, many of whom bought into this picture, because they though "well, this is the norm!!". Look at the impact the media is currently having in terms of the recession. Look how loud their voices are when it comes to spreading doom and gloom. How many people have you heard say in the last 6 months, that they wish it would all stop and people would shut up talking about misery all the time, it's all we ever hear. Look at the number of threads started on Boards with people frantically saying they've heard something is happening, should they withdraw all their money from a bank, or whatever. Hysteria. The number of rows that errupt in threads because people have posted links to newspaper articles, and everyone just reads the headline, assumes the content, and jumps into attack. Mass hysteria can be generated using media outlets. Never underestimate the power of advertising.

As I said, there is a level of personal responsibility in all this. But a large proportion of responsibility does need to be taken by the papers, who produced MASSIVE property supplements every week, the banks who aggressively advertised mortgages and property, and the Estate agents and brokers who played the same games. Media and advertising works for a reason.And in the case of the property boom, it worked then too.

good point, the recession is the new celtic tiger for the media. They should be ignored as they were wrong then and they will be worng on everything from now on.

Sleepy

Sorry, I should have clarified, *shouldn't* cost more than 50/60k.

A national house prices database would be an incredibly simple system. It's a matter of:

1. A small database (a little over half a million houses to track irregular movement of - easily done on a small MySQL based server).

2. A web interface for solicitors to enter change of ownership details with. Simple to develop and should be relatively easy to maintain, existing IT in a govt. dept should be able to handle it easily.

3. A second web interface to allow the public to view and search through a limited set of the data recorded (i.e. a single view of the database to include address, last purchase price and date of purchase).

It's the sort of system students design as college projects, not a HR system for the HSE where thousands of different pay scales and entitlements exist.

dan_d

Liking that graph donegalfella!!!

I notice it's particularly true, for the following.....

I worked in construction. As far back as mid 2007, rumours were trickling through.Construction workers gossip like grannies!!! They know everything about everything, long before anybody else does. So rumours were trickling through that work was slowing down, that people were finding it a bit harder to get weekly wages, that companies owed money. The work was still there, but suddenly the lads were looking ahead and saying "what's the job after this, does anyone know whose got such-and-such contract?"Then the whispers of a few redundancies began to come through around early - mid 2008. Literally - whispers. Then rumours started about construction firms that were struggling to pay debts.

And then....the flood gates opened. But we knew. Those in the construction industry, especially those in the bigger companies, knew, long before anybody else that things were getting very rocky, that the housing market was dipping.They mightn't have accepted it, but those of us with half a brain put 2 and 2 together and got 5.(:D) Someone posted a thread here recently about Pierse going under, and then asked me, when I said that had been known for 2 years, how I could possibly have known that....because since summer 08 it's been known in the construction industry that Pierse were struggling to pay it's creditors, and things were only getting worse and not better.And then, McNamara......

So looking at that graph and my own experience - yup, it all fits!!!!!The media hysteria really kicked in after the Lehman Brothers, but the rumours were there long before that.And once the media got a hold of it - well, here we are now, I suppose.

Bill2673

dan_d wrote: »

Liking that graph donegalfella!!!

I notice it's particularly true, for the following.....

I worked in construction. As far back as mid 2007, rumours were trickling through.Construction workers gossip like grannies!!! They know everything about everything, long before anybody else does. So rumours were trickling through that work was slowing down, that people were finding it a bit harder to get weekly wages, that companies owed money. The work was still there, but suddenly the lads were looking ahead and saying "what's the job after this, does anyone know whose got such-and-such contract?"Then the whispers of a few redundancies began to come through around early - mid 2008. Literally - whispers. Then rumours started about construction firms that were struggling to pay debts.

And then....the flood gates opened. But we knew. Those in the construction industry, especially those in the bigger companies, knew, long before anybody else that things were getting very rocky, that the housing market was dipping.They mightn't have accepted it, but those of us with half a brain put 2 and 2 together and got 5.(:D) Someone posted a thread here recently about Pierse going under, and then asked me, when I said that had been known for 2 years, how I could possibly have known that....because since summer 08 it's been known in the construction industry that Pierse were struggling to pay it's creditors, and things were only getting worse and not better.And then, McNamara......

So looking at that graph and my own experience - yup, it all fits!!!!!The media hysteria really kicked in after the Lehman Brothers, but the rumours were there long before that.And once the media got a hold of it - well, here we are now, I suppose.

Thanks Dan.

You still in construction?

Any sign of it getting better?

waxon-waxoff

We could be here all day pointing fingers but i think most people got carried away. On estate agents, anybody i knew who got into that business was a chancer, a loud mouth, the sort looking for a quick buck or a shortcut all their life. You could buy a licence and off you went. The fact was there was huge demand for all property, people even waited overnight to put deposits down. They are sorry now and looking for someone to blame but nobody put a gun to their head and forced them to buy.

I knew there was something wrong whenever i returned home from Dublin to rural Ireland and seen estates popping up in towns and villages with small populations and no major employers. I couldnt see where the demand was coming from yet somebody was buying them in the hope they would increase in value.

monkeypants

Are EAs currently lobbying to provide valuations for the new property tax?

jmayo

Wicklowrider wrote: »

My opinion is yes - its a lot different because the greed driven scum were to a large part responsible for bringing our economy down. A shop keeper over pricing his wares leaves you with the choice of buying elsewhere but a person seeking to put a roof over their head had no choice.

They did have a choice, they go elsewhere to another EA or they rent if at all possible.

Fair enough for the ones that had families and wanted to put down roots, but a lot of singeltons bought out in the ar**hole of nowhere just to get on the mythical ladder and trade up.
I found some of these early 20 somethings claimed they would have made a million from property in the coming few years.
How many singletons bought purely investment properties whilst still living at home ?

A lot of others bough investment properties.

My gripe about EAs was not the BS they uttered, but the sneaky unehtical things like gazumping and passing on of mortgage approval information.
You can see through the BS, but you can not see the other two.

syklops wrote: »

My father always says:"You never ask a Barber whether you need a haircut". So why would you trust a house evaluation given to you by an EA?

Sounds like a wise man.

dan_d wrote: »

I remember a Mars Bar being 20p.....:P

A friend said to me recently her older brother, who is stuck deeply in NE (and is an accountant:rolleyes:), was talking to her about the property thing a few days ago. He said if he could do it again, he wouldn't have bought (which is fair enough), but he also made the point that all his generation heard for 10 years - 10 whole years - was "buy,buy,buy, get your foot on the property ladder, now's the best time, buy,buy,buy, they'll never be cheaper, you're stupid if you don't buy, go out quick, buy, buy, quickly......"

And what were their parents who bought in the 60s, 70s or 80s saying ?
Your argument is that people were brainwashed.
Well I recall telling people that they were paying way too much for what they were getting and I was laughed at.
Too many people failed to adequately look at the risks and look at what they were getting into.
Hell some people spent more times picking out clothes and a car than checking out a property purchase.
How many eejits bought property in overseas locations they not alone had never visited, but sometimes couldn't find it on a map. :rolleyes:

dan_d wrote: »

It doesn't take away from the fact that people apparently lost all sense of reason. But you have to think - if you've never known any different, this is normality to you. Of course there were those who hedged their bets and took a step back. But media and advertising are designed to appeal to the masses - and well, they did.Nowadays, there are kids out there in college who have never, ever known anything other than ipods, Ugg Boots, shopping trips to NY, credit cards, mobile phones and unlimited bank accounts. That's life to them. They've never heard anything different. That's the picture the media has created for them, aided and abetted by their parents, many of whom bought into this picture, because they though "well, this is the norm!!". Look at the impact the media is currently having in terms of the recession. Look how loud their voices are when it comes to spreading doom and gloom. How many people have you heard say in the last 6 months, that they wish it would all stop and people would shut up talking about misery all the time, it's all we ever hear. Look at the number of threads started on Boards with people frantically saying they've heard something is happening, should they withdraw all their money from a bank, or whatever. Hysteria. The number of rows that errupt in threads because people have posted links to newspaper articles, and everyone just reads the headline, assumes the content, and jumps into attack. Mass hysteria can be generated using media outlets. Never underestimate the power of advertising.

Saying that they are doing the same today is incorrect, because no one is now paying them to write how horrible and seemingly hopeless the situation has become.

I think the fact that people could not see through the media vested interest in talking up and keeping the bubble going is a sad indication of how utterly hopeless our education system is at preparing people for actual life.

dan_d wrote: »

As I said, there is a level of personal responsibility in all this. But a large proportion of responsibility does need to be taken by the papers, who produced MASSIVE property supplements every week, the banks who aggressively advertised mortgages and property, and the Estate agents and brokers who played the same games. Media and advertising works for a reason.And in the case of the property boom, it worked then too.

True the media was bought and paid for by the other vested interests.
What passed as journalism was pure propaganda.
But people do still have to take personal responsibility.

dan_d

I wholly agree there is an element of personal responsibility. Absolutely.And I said so a number of times in my post.

I did not say that the current college kids were still doing the Ugg boots/NY trip things. What I said was that they've been brought up to believe that that's life, and suddenly things are totally different. I'm not commenting on whether that's good or bad, just using it as an example.

As to the parents who were born in the 60s/70s/80s....I'm sorry, but they were the ones driving the prices up.How many examples are there of people who bought 3/4 bed semi-d houses in those years, for 25,000 at 17%interest rate over 25 years, reselling for 500,000eur + in estates all over Dublin? Why do you think property prices in certain areas skyrocketed??? It wasn't because the 20 somethings offered 600,000eur for a 3 bed in Templogue that another 20 something was selling - it was because their parents put them on the market for that, and then were paid for it. And then the people next door saw that and thought "jeez, we could try and get 650,000eur"...and off they went. The same people who then went and bought timeshares in Spain, and holiday homes down the country. Meanwhile they were pricing their kids out of the area they grew up in, while at the same time telling them to buy locally, look at how expensive the houses are, only the "right" people can afford to live here.

Look I'm not arguing whether that was wrong or right. What I'm saying was that there is a huge portion of blame that should be laid at the door of the media and EA. To an extent, yes, people were brainwashed. Our parents generation set the example (because they had the property...the 3/4 bed houses in well-established areas...), and fueled by cheap credit, it was followed by their kids. And expanded on. My father was one of the ones who spent the last 10-15 years saying that this was all wrong. I had it in my ear the whole time - which made me aware that something wasn't right in all of this. But most people didn't! I have cousins whose parents leaped on a bandwagon, spent the last 10 years "keeping up with the Jones'", and now they've got a house and an apartment that they are deep in NE, plus their family home.....the pony is gone, and the car has been downgraded, and they are bemoaning the lack of holidays. And yet, my cousin still shops in BT, wears Tommy Hilfiger/Polo/Lacoste everything, and wants to send his kids to private school, on an ordinary salary and "doesn't believe" in saving or pensions because "mam and dad got by fine without them". No sense of reality at all. None.His parents bought into every last inch of the Celtic Tiger, and, their kids think that's normal.

It's not just as simple as "people were stupid, nobody held a gun to their head". There's a whole, far more complex thing going on there. There is personal responsibility, but there's just as much responsibility on the EA's and the media. That's all I'm saying.

As for the construction industry - well I'm still unemployed, so no, not great!!! But thanks for asking!!!

cyclopath2001

monkeypants wrote: »

Are EAs currently lobbying to provide valuations for the new property tax?

Of course they are. At 100 euro a pop for every house in the country, they think it's a great idea.

I don't suppose the Govt would make sure that there was competition among EAs so as to drive down the cost of getting valuations?

later12

Lets face it, Estate Agents, while they generally made a lot of money, were never the most educated of actors to have played a part in this financial crisis.

To take my own town for example, one estate agent was a part time undertaker, the other left school at 16. Both were extraordinarily successful businessmen. But all that means is that they were good talkers, and good sellers. Many Estate Agents have struggled to get a place in an Institute of Technology, and in fact some that I know are back there now, studying for diplomas in anything from industrial design to film making.

Estate Agents were significant only in a very minor way, as opposed to bankers and politicians who played a role in strategy and drove the property bubble from the bottom up.

The estate agents, like solicitors, are consequential operators and as such, remain of little or no consequence as a result.

smelltheglove

It was all obviously going to fall at some stage. I bought my first house at 22, working part time, in a supermarket:eek: yes I got the mortgage, never mind the fact that I was a single mother at the time also but yes strings were pulled. I paid my mortgage on time every time. When viewing houses, if one house was sold in an estate for 10k above asking the next house for sale in that estate had an asking price of the previous sale and offers were expected above, which meant in simple terms, 4 houses for sale in one estate in 6 months would push the price of those houses up by at least 40k.

I went on to buy with my now husband in suburbs of Dublin, which I couldnt afford first time around. Less than 2 years later I sold, in the space of that time the house price increased by 33%, yes, a huge amount. When selling people were telling us how mad we were, prices were going up so quick we could make a fortune if we stayed put. We used an estate agent that agreed with us, almost guaranteed that prices would fall and fall soon but she obviously didnt say that to potential buyers.

We received offers, 3 or 4 times daily, going up by 2k at a time until 3 days after viewing commenced the agent called and said the couples viewing were getting irritated about being outbid so quickly so to name my price. I said 30k above asking and half an hour later the deal was sealed, quick and easy as that. A year later the house was worth 50k less, this year one on the street sold for less than half the price we sold ours for, now that was a quick sale with a ridiculously low asking price but it was still sold at asking.

Yes I am glad I sold, and I am so glad I didnt get sold by the estate agents we went with after that, we pulled out of our build plans and rented, we are in a much better position now, we dont owe the bank the 50 or 60k above value that we could have owed right now

ei.sdraob

Sleepy wrote: »

Sorry, I should have clarified, *shouldn't* cost more than 50/60k.

A national house prices database would be an incredibly simple system. It's a matter of:

1. A small database (a little over half a million houses to track irregular movement of - easily done on a small MySQL based server).

2. A web interface for solicitors to enter change of ownership details with. Simple to develop and should be relatively easy to maintain, existing IT in a govt. dept should be able to handle it easily.

3. A second web interface to allow the public to view and search through a limited set of the data recorded (i.e. a single view of the database to include address, last purchase price and date of purchase).

It's the sort of system students design as college projects, not a HR system for the HSE where thousands of different pay scales and entitlements exist.

If i somehow could get my hands on the data (revenue have it)

I could throw together the core of the above in a few days


hint hint someone please wikileak the revenues database

Sleepy

Do revenue have the data?

I was under the impression they're about to waste a fortune paying EA's to value houses.

AFAIK, the banks would be the only place with accurate figures for sale prices of houses in Ireland and, even then, the figures wouldn't reflect a valuation since they'd probably be 2/3 times the actual value of the property.

Mr.Micro

cyclopath2001 wrote: »

Of course they are. At 100 euro a pop for every house in the country, they think it's a great idea.

I don't suppose the Govt would make sure that there was competition among EAs so as to drive down the cost of getting valuations?

Plus of course a massive data base of properties will be created and paid for by the tax payer and in time the Estate Agent sharks will have access to. These sharks have no ethics or principles.

micro_dot

waxon-waxoff wrote: »

We could be here all day pointing fingers but i think most people got carried away. ... The fact was there was huge demand for all property, people even waited overnight to put deposits down. They are sorry now and looking for someone to blame but nobody put a gun to their head and forced them to buy.... I couldnt see where the demand was coming from yet somebody was buying them in the hope they would increase in value.

The more I hear that it was people's own fault, that they were stupid, I think that it's part of the same mentality as then, that some people should be happy to be at the bottom of the pile. After all, they were supposed to avoid being at the bottom of this pile.

optocynic

Mr.Micro wrote: »

Plus of course a massive data base of properties will be created and paid for by the tax payer and in time the Estate Agent sharks will have access to. These sharks have no ethics or principles.

Isn't that a bit of a generalisation. Like saying all PS workers are lazy, pampered and afraid of meaningful change?

population

dan_d wrote: »

Liking that graph donegalfella!!!

I notice it's particularly true, for the following.....

I worked in construction. As far back as mid 2007, rumours were trickling through.Construction workers gossip like grannies!!! They know everything about everything, long before anybody else does. So rumours were trickling through that work was slowing down, that people were finding it a bit harder to get weekly wages, that companies owed money. The work was still there, but suddenly the lads were looking ahead and saying "what's the job after this, does anyone know whose got such-and-such contract?"Then the whispers of a few redundancies began to come through around early - mid 2008. Literally - whispers. Then rumours started about construction firms that were struggling to pay debts.

And then....the flood gates opened. But we knew. Those in the construction industry, especially those in the bigger companies, knew, long before anybody else that things were getting very rocky, that the housing market was dipping.They mightn't have accepted it, but those of us with half a brain put 2 and 2 together and got 5.(:D) Someone posted a thread here recently about Pierse going under, and then asked me, when I said that had been known for 2 years, how I could possibly have known that....because since summer 08 it's been known in the construction industry that Pierse were struggling to pay it's creditors, and things were only getting worse and not better.And then, McNamara......

So looking at that graph and my own experience - yup, it all fits!!!!!The media hysteria really kicked in after the Lehman Brothers, but the rumours were there long before that.And once the media got a hold of it - well, here we are now, I suppose.

This is spot on. Being ex-Irish construction alumni myself I can honestly say that there were whispers on site since early 2006. However some of the builders I worked for, small-ish build 10 houses in an estate clueless farmer types, started saying to me in 2007 when the first real indicators of the coming collapse were on the horizon, that it was actually the fault of the government because of the then uncertainty over whether or not stamp duty would be reformed, and the fault of the media because "sure they're talking the whole thing down". Nothing to do with the fact that they were pricing a dogbox apartment in Termonfeckin at nearly 250k of course:rolleyes:

Sponge Bob

One old stager I knew finished an estate in spring 2005 and said it would be his last job, he finally sold them all by late 2005, many at prices higher than he had intended to charge.

He could see no value and no point in building any more looking at the situation from late 2004 onwards. He had no more land and refused to buy more at those 2004 prices. The bubble staggered on till around 2007, sadly.

This from a character who spent the 1980s in Ireland.

cyclopath2001

Sleepy wrote: »

Do revenue have the data?

I was under the impression they're about to waste a fortune paying EA's to value houses.

According to newspaper speculation, the householder would pay an auctioneer for the valuation, the tax would be self-assessed and if the valuation turns out to be too low, the householder would face penalties. So, a win for the valuers and win-win for the government.

kaiser sauze

Sleepy wrote: »

Two cures for EA behaviour:

A flat fee for representing a seller rather than a percentage of the sale price.
A national database recording actual selling price of houses.

Both should be extremely easy to implement. A piece of legislation for the first barring EA's from charging percentages. A legal requirement for solicitors to record the change of ownership of a house and the particulars of the sale via a web-based application for the second. If the development of the second went much beyond 50k to develop and implement nationally I'd be surprised given that the admin for the site could easily be carried out by existing Department of Environment employees.

ToxicPaddy wrote: »

I think you're being hopeful there.. anything to do with any government department is going to cost millions and years to implement because:

• Specialist "Advisors" need to be brought in
• Legal Challenges by the EA's as to the legality of it all
• Discussions in the Dail because TD's are being lobbied by the IAVI and their cronies
• Agreement on design and layout by a special panel of "Experts"
• Advertising for tenders for the design and implementation
• Counting all the money that comes in the big brown envelopes that accompany said tenders
• Time and effort discovering ways to launder said money that accompanied said tenders in big brown envelopes so the CAB wont find it.
• Tenders for the design of a nice looking colourful logo and stationary to accompany said logo
• Agreeing on nice looking stationary and colourful logo
• Advertising product
• Implementation of product
• Maintenance and Support contracts
• Setting up a toothless, worthless governing body with absolutely no powers to force such a product to be used by EA's
• ahh hell.. Ive given up trying to think what else.. :rolleyes:

What neither of you mentioned was the huge charges for the data entry that the solicitors would levy. They would probably charge by the letter, numbers would be double as it means moving their hand over to the right hand side of the keyboard.

donegalfella wrote: »

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Before I even read your first line I had imagined the graph as just one big epic fart.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.