The Celtic Tiger - did you have a shoe shine moment?

Judgement Day

Legend has it that Joe Kennedy, patriarch of the USA Kennedy clan, knew when to get out of the stock market when he received share tips from a shoe shine boy; did anybody here have a similar experience before the Irish property crash? Mine came in 2006 when I saw the advertisement (below) in the Indo. of 27/1/2006. The 'shed', which is still there as far as I know, was sandwiched between the Dublin/Rosslare railway line and the road with NO scope for expansion and probably would not have received planning permission for any extension - a snip at €120,000!

Duffy the Vampire Slayer

My father, a plasterer, was telling anyone who'd listen that the Irish economy would inevitably collapse since at least 2004.

mikemac

It's a long time since I was in Stephens Green shopping centre
When the radio was nothing but SSIA ads there were so many ads encouraging people investing in art.
"Sure fire investment" "Can't lose"
I've seen some of these and maybe I'm low brow and a philistine but a lot cost over €700 for some abstract splashes.
What does the average Irish person know about art?

ilovesleep

There was a shed just outside from galway city going two years ago or there abouts for 600,000 euro. A tiny fart of a thing. You'd have to get planning permission and knock it down to build something meaningful on it. Thats 600,000 euro before you do anything with it. Pure and utter madness.

R P McMurphy

AIB selling off properties was a bit of a flare going up into the night sky for anyone who was bothered to open their eyes

gigino

Judgement Day wrote: »

Legend has it that Joe Kennedy, patriarch of the USA Kennedy clan, knew when to get out of the stock market when he received share tips from a shoe shine boy; did anybody here have a similar experience before the Irish property crash?

When I saw RTE interviewing people coming out of an overseas property exhibition , and there was a couple of relatively young teachers happy as Larry because they had each just bought apartments in Dubai - yes Dubai - as investments. They said they were thinking ahead and needed to suppliment their pension when they retire, and wanted to build up their investment portfolio.

DonJose

The following sticks to mind, €130,000 for a 12ft x 10ft bedsit, this was in 2003!!!

ILLUSTRATING the skyrocketting prices of Dublin property, almost €130,000 has just been paid for a room only slightly bigger than a prison cell at Leeson Park in Dublin 6.
The price secured for the bedsit is almost double the guide of €75,000 issued for the 10X12 ft room and it was purchased by a PHd student from Co Wexford who reckons his younger siblings will also use it when they reach college-going age and thereby save on rent.

Reminiscent of a student bedsit, it comprises one room with a wash hand basin, closed-up fireplace and a small separate toilet. It does not come with a parking space and having viewed the property, it certainly does need complete refurbishment even though an elderly lady lived there until recently with a small cooker and television. It was sold by Vincent Finnegan Auctioneers.

http://www.independent.ie/unsorted/property/130k--for-a-room-204510.html

neris

Mine was property related in 2004. I had bought a house as an investment and my dad bought a similar house round the corner at the same time. Was a gap of about 10k in the prices. We decided we have a look at another house close by and put in bid about 10k higher then our houses. That week we had calls from the estate agent with the current prices. The last call was to tell us the price was 65k above our offer. That was valuing the house at 400k which just seemed unreal at the time. The house went up another 100k and are now back down around the prices we paid

arrowloopboy

When labourers on sites started arriving in 30 grand jeeps and block layers were buying a share in a race horse and a flat in Bulgaria.
Now their all at home crying into their sturabout blaming FF/the banks etc.
Look in the mirror,you blew the boom !

cyclopath2001

gigino wrote: »

When I saw RTE interviewing people coming out of an overseas property

I remember the radio ads for that...." Come on down, we have 8,000 properties in Spain...." and I thought to myself: WHY?

FlashD

My shoe shine moment came when I left the country to go travelling in '07. Best investment in my life I ever made.

I was about 4-5 months in New Zealand before I began to realise all the sh*te I had been listening to for the last 8 years had diasppeared from my life.

A slight blip on the radar in '09 when I returned but wasn't long before I was making my exit again for Asia.

F*ck FF....and their scumbag voters .

L1011

R P McMurphy wrote: »

AIB selling off properties was a bit of a flare going up into the night sky for anyone who was bothered to open their eyes

That was mine as well - they knew what they were doing there - pity about all the other things they didn't!

amacachi

In 5th year economics I was confused as to why the government continually raised spending despite the ridiculously high inflation rate. Can't remember exactly how I phrased the question but when I asked a follow-up question the teacher gave me what I'd call a "knowing look".

Another one was in 2007 that 17 and 18 year olds in their first couple of years as apprentices were getting 600 a week (outside Dublin btw) cash-in-hand for labouring on building sites and houses, so who knows what the guy who was paying was actually getting paid for their services.

Dodd

R P McMurphy wrote: »

AIB selling off properties was a bit of a flare going up into the night sky for anyone who was bothered to open their eyes

As said there.They sold and rented the place that they sold.

Grecco

A neighbor I lived beside back in 2006 refused €440K for his house from a teacher, He said he`d wait it out that the house was worth €500k..:eek:.. I got in contact with the teacher and sold him my house for the €440K. My wife went ballistic when I told her I had the house sold... All the relatives were on my case also telling me what a fool I was..
I spent €60k doing up an old farmhouse on my dads farm which turned out to be just as nice as the house I sold, I`ve been getting 5.5% on the balance with the last 4 years.. Happy days!

catbear

Dodd wrote: »

As said there.They sold and rented the place that they sold.

I thought that was the top of the market then but it kept going well after. I didn't truly understand how bad things were until I first viewed a house for sale in 06. When I did the maths against renting everything time I came to the same conclusion, rent and have a life or buy and be a debt slave.

PeakOutput

I don't know if its a shoe shine moment but my first summer in america made me realize I could buy a lovely ocean view apartment in boston for aound a quarter of the price I could in dublin or a much bigger house then my parents the same distance from boston as my parents are from dublin for less then half the price their neighbors house sold for.

It also made me realize that buying a house is not simply 'the next step' in everyones life as I met people making more then most professionals will ever make while still living in Rv's and travelling the world and having a literally unquantifiably better quality of life.

Now I may settle in Ireland eventually, and I will probably buy and own a house here but I imagine the next bubble will be just about to start by the time I am ready to do that and in the mean time I will thank my lucky stars that I wasn't born 3/4 years earlier and graduate into the peak of the boom and believe I was entitled to be able to afford anything I could think off

crackcrack30

Afriend of mine went out to buy some groceries and came back with an appartment in slovakia.

E hob selling property in cape verde - they import water there
And have an unemployment rate of 30% or thereabouts

mikemac

I finished school, worked a bit and survived in college on my grant and a minimum wage hotel porter job

My brother and a few other locals quit school around 16/17 and would pull 500/600 labouring per week on sites. Often cash in hand

Earning more that then a lot of graduates.

Yeah labouring is tough work alright but how did it command this wage? And I'm sure there were others on far more then 600 a week cash in hand
I saw them all with their cars, no wonder car sales were high in Ireland

Now they are on the dole or emigrating, no doubt blaming FF for not making the housing boom last forever, my heart bleeds

And that's just labouring. As for the prices charged by brickies :eek:

neris

This wasnt a shoe shine moment but more a WTF moment the other night. After the Man U game on TV3 during an ad break some guy came on talking about how his company are now selling unbelievable developments in the Azores and proceeded with all the usual celtic tiger waffle about rents, interest rates etc. Thought it was a mickey take at 1st.

Hal Emmerich

neris wrote: »

This wasnt a shoe shine moment but more a WTF moment the other night. After the Man U game on TV3 during an ad break some guy came on talking about how his company are now selling unbelievable developments in the Azores and proceeded with all the usual celtic tiger waffle about rents, interest rates etc. Thought it was a mickey take at 1st.

Highly Salami

Hal Emmerich wrote: »

..

Looks good, where do I sign up?

Chipboard

A friend of mine told me in the pub a few years ago that he had been brought out to Bulgaria (with a group of people, flights and tranfers all paid) by two guys from Mayo, who had been farmers I think but had introduced him to the idea of investing in property out there.

I was kind of astonished that he thought these guys had any value to add and I kept saying it to him, so that he would say something that would make me understand. I just couldn't see how these two snakeoil salesmen could add any value and I thought he was a smart fellow and was amazed that he would buy through them. He got fairly cool towards me as the evening went on.

If anyone can do it, there's no value in it, so don't pay them for it.

foxyboxer

1. Relative's Husband buying property in Spain based off the blueprints.

2. Christmas 2006 - A set of candles in Brown Thomas for €1,100 :eek:

Hal Emmerich

Highly Salami wrote: »

Looks good, where do I sign up?

Just send me your bank details and I'll do the rest.:P

foxyboxer wrote: »

2. Christmas 2006 - A set of candles in Brown Thomas for €1,100 :eek:

Possibly bought by someone wearing Ugg boots and big saucer sunglasses and driving a mini copper.

Possibly.

catbear

Don't forget "Bling" water or €44 a bottle in Superquinn!

RATM

I had a true shoe shine boy moment in 2006. I was on my way home in a taxi with a lad from Nigeria driving me. Along the way he directed the conversation to property and we waffled on. Then when we arrived he announced that he was also an estate agent and pulled out a Remax business card and told me he had lots of excellent properties for sale so I could 'get on the ladder'.

Then about 2 days later AIB sold all their properties and leased them back When I added up the two incidents together I knew the game was up.

davmigil

When I got an (unsolicited!) letter from Anglo Irish Bank inviting me to invest €20k in a film financing fund, and in the same letter offering to lend me the money to do so!

coylemj

Considering that the property market in Spain has collapsed, you would want to be a complete idiot to invest in property in the Cape Verde Islands. As an earlier poster has said, they have to import water and they are frequently buffeted by sandstorms from nearby Senegal on the African mainland, bet you won't read about that in the brochure!

That video above is promising 8% rental guaranteed for 20 years - where are the people who are going to pay that kind of rent? The same BS was used to sell apartments in Bulgaria, total fiction.

Don't trust any salesman who waves both hands at you, even he doesn't believe what he's saying.

p.s. I just checked and there are no direct flights from UK or Ireland to Boa Vista, the Cape Verde island where that guy is building apartments, he conveniently doesn't mention that on his website either.

Judgement Day

Funny that you should mention Bulgaria - every time I hear the 'great' Eddie Hobbs being asked for his views on the financial crisis I wait to hear any interviewer ask him about his Bulgarian property schemes. :rolleyes:

FiresaleBuyer

My shoe shine moment came in 2005 when I was walking down a grotty little street off Pearse St, and seeing a shop selling lamps. There was a table lamp on display with a price tag of €700.

It was instantly clear to me then that anyone who was stupid enough to spend €700 on a table lamp would end up broke and penniless, in a matter of time.

Ddad

We looked at buying the investment propertyin 2001 and teh yield was 6-7%. We looked gain in 2006 and best scenario yield on a property was 3-4%. Was considering it when our tiler and our postman in the space of one week told me about their rental properties..properties WTF. I know how much postmen get paid and tilers and teachers and guards and how many of them had multiple properties and I rumbled the insanity. Sold my own house at the end of 2008 while we still had some equity left.

SGKM

Very interesting thread.

I remember back in late 2006 I was at a friends 21st, I was 20 at the time and halfway through college. I regularly read the business sections of papers since I was in my mid teens so would have been reasonably clued into the economy for my age...

Anyway I had a few drinks on me and got talking to my friends dad (estate agent) and uncle (wealth manager in a bank) about the property market. I was of the view that interest rates were at historical lows which was causing massive inflation in the Irish economy and we needed higher interest rates to combat this but because the big Eurozone economies were looking for growth over fighting inflation, rates were kept low. I explained how I though Irish people over leveraging themselves at low interest rates (which we as a nation do not control) was a recipe for disaster.

My logic was that when inflation became a Eurozone issue and rates were raised there would be tens of thousands of Irish people unable to pay their mortgages which would have to cause property prices to fall. The 2 lads laughed at me and their advice was to "buy now before it goes even higher". They were convinced that the "demand" from both Irish people and those who immigrated was never going to end!

Things collapsed for other reasons but my logic at the time was plausible and stood to reason but I was astonished at how adamant these guys were about the strength of the property market.

foxyboxer

Also in early 2007, I was reading a book about the incoming boom of commodities. I was completely financially illiterate at that point but was just starting to learn hence buying the book.

The author, Mark Shipman, was on the Late Late Show flogging the book, when Pat Kenny asked him "How many houses do you own?"

He replied "One, the one I live in"

There were audible gasps from the audience.

He went on to explain how bubbles and busts work on any asset type including property (heaven forfend! :eek:) to an incredulous Kenny.
He had made his fortune during the first incarnation of buy-to-let in the UK after the early 90's negative equity saga. He promptly sold his 'investments' when his postman was telling him about his 'property portfolio'. This to him indicated the top side of a bubble and he got out at the right time.

Subsequently reading the book, he recounts the most infamous bubbles in the past (Dutch Tulip Mania, dotcom mania and the japanese 80's property boom).

One anecdote struck me however in relation to the Celtic Tiger where in some of the more exclusive properties in Japan, if you placed a dollar bill on the floor, then you would need to pay $10,000 to just buy it that part of the property.

Something clicked and seeing the prices being paid for shoebox's at the time in Ireland it all made sense.

RATM

Thanks for the reminder Foxyboxer- that part of the Late Late where he said he only owned one property was priceless, the reaction in the audience was just one of amazement. It was a bit like that scene in the Savage Eye esisode on Property where you think the two lads are about to tell the father that they're gay but instead it turns out to be 'You're Renting?' to shock and horror.

That Marc Shipman is one smart cookie. He's on record with the Sunday Times as selling a massive portfolio of London property around about 2005, giving a bubble as his reasoning. I read that book front to back, twice, and then took his advice to get into commodities. To date I've more than doubled my money using a spread of coal, coffee, zinc, silver and copper. The rules he outlines of denoting buy and sell signals by paying attention to moving averages are excellent and once you take the emotion out of investing it can be quite rewarding indeed.

SGKM

Not 100% related but along the same lines of property madness and shoe shine moments... I dont know if anyone here read The Big Short by Michael Lewis? When he's describing one of the hedge fund managers looking for signs that the US subprime market was overheated, in 2006 the fund manager found someone working as a fruit picker earning $14,000 was given a mortgage of $750,000. You'd really wonder what kind of moron lent that money and how the borrower ever thought he could repay it... even if the capital value of the property was increasing at a huge rate per annum!

Delancey

Speaking of Pat Kenny and the Late Late show we should not forget that Kenny lashed out on a large house in Capetown - quite why Irish people bought property in a sh1thole that all the white people want to leave is beyond me .

My shoe shine moment came in 2005 0r 2006.

I had been in Lisbon as part of my job , back in the office in Dublin I was asked by the alcoholic dickhead security guy on the main desk if I had looked at properties while over there.
I told him that I had no interest in overseas property at which point he began telling me about the villa he had just bought in Portugal - this guy was , I suspect , functionally illiterate and quite possibly sub-normal.
I realised there and then that the lunatics were in the ascent :eek: