House prices

Farmer Pudsey

Have we reached the bottom of the fall in house prices except in area's which have very low population density's. Over the last year to year and a half we have had a debate about price recovery. While we may see a bump along the bottom where houses fall and rise in certain area's have those who held off on the taught that the prices would continue to fall now have to decide to buy or not.

It is not just house prices that have bottomed out, housing and building materials have recovered in price over the last 12 months. Dublin is seeing prices rises and government will have to take corrective action stabalise the market by preventing hording of building land. Cork, Limerick, Galway and other major towns/city's in general have a more stable market and with the economy staring to recover will excess holiday homes be snapped up if there is value in the market.

Godge

Farmer Pudsey wrote: »

Have we reached the bottom of the fall in house prices except in area's which have very low population density's. Over the last year to year and a half we have had a debate about price recovery. While we may see a bump along the bottom where houses fall and rise in certain area's have those who held off on the taught that the prices would continue to fall now have to decide to buy or not.

It is not just house prices that have bottomed out, housing and building materials have recovered in price over the last 12 months. Dublin is seeing prices rises and government will have to take corrective action stabalise the market by preventing hording of building land. Cork, Limerick, Galway and other major towns/city's in general have a more stable market and with the economy staring to recover will excess holiday homes be snapped up if there is value in the market.

I don't think we have reached the bottom in all areas and there may well be an element of "dead cat bounce" in the Dublin prices.

However, there is one thing that will split the market over the next five to ten years - broadband access.

There is no current cheap technology that will bring really fast broadband speeds to non-urban areas. Broadband access for homes and businesses will become ever more important. Petrol prices are also on the up and will continue on the up.

As the market recovers, there are parts of the country that will lag the market considerably, those without broadband access are most at risk.

Frank Black

Godge wrote: »

However, there is one thing that will split the market over the next five to ten years - broadband access.

There is no current cheap technology that will bring really fast broadband speeds to non-urban areas. Broadband access for homes and businesses will become ever more important. Petrol prices are also on the up and will continue on the up.

Can't see this being the defining issue for residential property prices. 4G will be introduced country-wide next year and should be speed of 5-6Mb (or so we are promised), and who is to say what will be around in 5-10yrs (5G, 6G?).

As always the key factor will be location, location, location. Access to work, shops schools and other services along with many other factors inc supply/demand will influence prices. BB access may be a factor of course, but I can't see it being the defining one.

Godge

Frank Black wrote: »

Can't see this being the defining issue for residential property prices. 4G will be introduced country-wide next year and should be speed of 5-6Mb (or so we are promised), and who is to say what will be around in 5-10yrs (5G, 6G?).

As always the key factor will be location, location, location. Access to work, shops schools and other services along with many other factors inc supply/demand will influence prices. BB access may be a factor of course, but I can't see it being the defining one.

The 4G requirement is to cover 70% of the population, not 90+% and there is no target for land area.

If you got 4G in Dublin, Cork and Limerick you would be most of the way to the 70%. No provider is going to spend money they don't have to.

Of course, BB is not the only defining factor for residential property but for business, especially large-scale business, it is and the rest follows from that.

macraignil

I am not sure that your information on the economy starting to recover is correct. We still have one of the largest national debts in the world and our main trading partner the EU is still not showing good economic growth with talk on the news during the week of France slipping into recession. We are also still not after balancing our budget in spite of almost seven years of "recruitment freeze" in the public sector and cuts to most social services. We have also seen increased taxation so what people are left with to spend on buying a home is much less than when we saw boom time prices for residential property.

The volume of residential property sales is so small currently that I do not see the value of trying to analyse them statistically to form any sort of general picture of the market. The only reason we have reduced unemployment rates is because so many people have been forced to leave the country. I am currently working for minimum wage in spite of completing over five years of post leaving certificate education in the hope of finding a job which would pay enough to live comfortably in this country. Having continuously checked for jobs advertised over the last few years I see no improvement in pay or conditions offered. Improved pay would allow large numbers to afford to buy their own home and could allow a stable property market. I can not see any sign of this happening, and any talk of increases in property prices I view as government spin to try to validate their investment of billions in banks with huge levels of property loans still owed on property that was never worth the prices reached in the boom/bubble years.

The_Honeybadger

Godge wrote: »

The 4G requirement is to cover 70% of the population, not 90+% and there is no target for land area.

If you got 4G in Dublin, Cork and Limerick you would be most of the way to the 70%. No provider is going to spend money they don't have to.

Of course, BB is not the only defining factor for residential property but for business, especially large-scale business, it is and the rest follows from that.

Totally agree, I love the idea of living out the country but broadband would be a major consideration. I simply wouldn't move into a house without a solid fast bb line at this stage. We use streaming services and my wife depends on the internet for work. Once you get used to having a good connection it would be hard to go backwards.

I'd have no faith in 4G solving the problem. The current 3G network has hotspots where the speed can be good but for most rural homes it is patchy and unreliable, regular dropouts etc. For alot of people in the age group that might be looking to buy this would not be acceptable.

woodoo

There was lots of housing stock built that nobody will want to live in. The prices for these places will continue to fall imo. Houses in decent areas i think have bottomed out. You could probably pick up a house in a ghost estate miles outside of a rural town for a pittance but you would have to pay higher for a similar house in that same town.

Scofflaw

Has anyone checked what volume of house sales is producing these price rises? Everything I've heard (most recently from a senior AIB economist) says that the volume involved is very small. It may be an indicator, or it may be a blip.

cordially,
Scofflaw

macraignil

kceire wrote: »

What are you qualified in?

I qualified as a science teacher in 2003 and since then completed a part time diploma at the UCC Food Science Department. Why are you interested?

Gumbo

macraignil wrote: »

I qualified as a science teacher in 2003 and since then completed a part time diploma at the UCC Food Science Department. Why are you interested?

Just trying to see where people are studying and the end effect. I know a few people qualified in particular areas but say they can't get work, then I see another person with similar quals walk into a job that supposedly isn't there.

There's a few "food science" jobs advertised on irishjobs at present http://www.irishjobs.ie/Food-Science-Jobs

moxin

The CSO will not release the volume of sales producing these price rises, all we know is that it is being driven in the wealthier areas of South County Dublin.

Over 50% of house sales are cash buyers driven by the increase in DIRT tax on savings. Mortgage lending is flat year on year up to Q3 and perhaps might be slightly lower than in 2012 come Dec 31st, the IBF have admitted this. The cash buyers will run out and we'll be back to square one. Oh and Investec have withdrawn plans to enter the Irish mortgage market.

http://www.ibf.ie/Libraries/Research_Statistics/IBF_Housing_Market_Monitor_Q3_2013_FINAL.sflb.ashx

Partly due to the MIR factor noted above, the total value of mortgage drawdowns for 2013 is unlikely to exceed the €2.6bn seen last year. Between Q1 and Q3 of this year some 9,800 mortgages (8,711 of which were for house purchase) were drawn down with a total value of €1.6 billion (€1.5 billion of which was for house purchase).
Investec Ireland has previously estimated that the mortgage market could recover to €8-10 billion per annum over the medium term, so we are clearly far from ‘normal service' where the mortgage market is concerned.

malibu4u

to even out prices around the country a bit the government should decentralise a few govt depts. out of Dublin: that will increase the supply in Dublin a bit and help stop the slide outside of Dublin. Win win!

Frank Black

malibu4u wrote: »

to even out prices around the country a bit the government should decentralise a few govt depts. out of Dublin: that will increase the supply in Dublin a bit and help stop the slide outside of Dublin. Win win!

I like it.
Needs a snappy title though.
Defocalisation?

mitosis

malibu4u wrote: »

to even out prices around the country a bit the government should decentralise a few govt depts. out of Dublin: that will increase the supply in Dublin a bit and help stop the slide outside of Dublin. Win win!

Pretty sure that was tried ten years ago.

chopper6

A lot of cash buyers in the market at the moment...and they're getting good deals on previously unafordable properties.

Some areas never saw much of a devaluing anyway...for example places like Skerries where people who are from the area,usually quite well-off are buying the limited amount of housing stock for the asking pries and above.

Dr. Kenneth Noisewater

Godge wrote: »

The 4G requirement is to cover 70% of the population, not 90+% and there is no target for land area.

If you got 4G in Dublin, Cork and Limerick you would be most of the way to the 70%. No provider is going to spend money they don't have to.

Of course, BB is not the only defining factor for residential property but for business, especially large-scale business, it is and the rest follows from that.

Not at all, nor nowhere near. More like 45% (and thats stretching it!). Nice try though

Gumbo

malibu4u wrote: »

to even out prices around the country a bit the government should decentralise a few govt depts. out of Dublin: that will increase the supply in Dublin a bit and help stop the slide outside of Dublin. Win win!

Wasnt decentralisation tried before?

chopper6 wrote: »

A lot of cash buyers in the market at the moment...and they're getting good deals on previously unafordable properties.

Yep, according to DNG, Jan-Sep of 2013 53.7% of transactions were cash buyers. But in September 33.9% of transactions were cash buyers.

Farmer Pudsey

deccurley wrote: »

Not at all, nor nowhere near. More like 45% (and thats stretching it!). Nice try though

If you took thev 2-3 major towns in every county and the five city'syou would be well over the 70%. Also when you account for satallite towns/villages off city's Like Ballincollig in Cork these have huge banks of population equivlent to large county towns. Limerick city under old structure struggled to meet 50K population however with not formers county area's such as Castletroy and Dooradoyle included I imagine it is nearer to 200K than 50K. Corbally in clare is still not included I think.

I think a lot of people do not relise that 4G will really be an Urban facuilty not a rural one. To get high speeds it will require Fibre backbone not readily available along the west coast.

However I believe that government will have to do somthing with the rural divide regarding Broadband so far it has being careless in it planning of it spending money where it is often comercially viable for private operators to provide it need to target area's where there is a isuue regarding the commercial provision.

Sleepy

Definitely seems to be fairly brisk movement in housing in Clontarf/Raheny/Killester from what I can see. Lots of "Sold" and "Sale Agreed" signs over the past few months. Of course, that volume would be possibly a couple of hundred houses since the start of the year whereas during the boom we'd have had entire estates / appartment blocks being sold. Huge demand out there for family homes in good areas where, unfortunately, there's no chance of increasing supply.

Dr. Kenneth Noisewater

Farmer Pudsey wrote: »

If you took thev 2-3 major towns in every county and the five city'syou would be well over the 70%. Also when you account for satallite towns/villages off city's Like Ballincollig in Cork these have huge banks of population equivlent to large county towns. Limerick city under old structure struggled to meet 50K population however with not formers county area's such as Castletroy and Dooradoyle included I imagine it is nearer to 200K than 50K. Corbally in clare is still not included I think.

I think a lot of people do not relise that 4G will really be an Urban facuilty not a rural one. To get high speeds it will require Fibre backbone not readily available along the west coast.

However I believe that government will have to do somthing with the rural divide regarding Broadband so far it has being careless in it planning of it spending money where it is often comercially viable for private operators to provide it need to target area's where there is a isuue regarding the commercial provision.

Sorry I don't mean to drag this thread off on a tangent but according to statistics, the urban population of Ireland is only about 62%. Even if those stats only account for the urban core of towns, you'd still want to have 4g coverage in practically every small town in the country. And yes, that 50k figure for Limerick is complete rubbish, although 200k is pushing it a bit, its more like 90-100k.

Godge

deccurley wrote: »

Sorry I don't mean to drag this thread off on a tangent but according to statistics, the urban population of Ireland is only about 62%. Even if those stats only account for the urban core of towns, you'd still want to have 4g coverage in practically every small town in the country. And yes, that 50k figure for Limerick is complete rubbish, although 200k is pushing it a bit, its more like 90-100k.

http://www.cso.ie/en/media/csoie/census/documents/census2011vol1andprofile1/Profile1_Town_and_Country_Entire_doc.pdf


From the CSO, it confirms your 62% of the country is urban (see Table 2). However, you should remember that this classifies some areas as rural which may be very questionable e.g. "7.7 per cent of the population of Fingal
lived in rural areas in April 2011". I have no doubt that there are small parts of Fingal which are rural but with Swords and Blanchardstown in Fingal, how as much as 7.7% are classified as rural is beyond me unless you are including the likes of Rush, Lusk and Skerries as rural. While the CSO might classify them as rural, I think that the phone companies will bring 4G to those areas purely because they commute into Dublin and will be target customers. Similarly the coast road out from Salthill, while rural, will also get 4G, ditto the Ennis road and the Foynes roads from Limerick as well as the main inter-urban motorways.

Relying therefore on the figure of 62% to suggest widespread 4G in rural areas is misleading. Similarly, with the roll-out of fibre broadband, it would make more sense to bring fibre broadband to places like Skerries, Balbriggan and Julianstown due to proximity issues than bringing it to say Killybegs or Carndonagh.

I am still sticking to the idea of likely availability of high-speed broadband and/or 4G services as a proxy indicator of areas of the country that will have population growth and growth in demand for housing feeding into property price rises.

kidneyfan

moxin wrote: »

The CSO will not release the volume of sales producing these price rises, all we know is that it is being driven in the wealthier areas of South County Dublin.

Over 50% of house sales are cash buyers driven by the increase in DIRT tax on savings. Mortgage lending is flat year on year up to Q3 and perhaps might be slightly lower than in 2012 come Dec 31st, the IBF have admitted this. The cash buyers will run out and we'll be back to square one. Oh and Investec have withdrawn plans to enter the Irish mortgage market.

http://www.ibf.ie/Libraries/Research_Statistics/IBF_Housing_Market_Monitor_Q3_2013_FINAL.sflb.ashx

You can derive this yourself from the property price register.

Gumbo

kidneyfan wrote: »

You can derive this yourself from the property price register.

It's way out of date. 2 houses on my road sold in the last 3 months, and nothing up there. One house I was admiring out on the growth road sold 2 months ago, nothing on the PPR yet.

ezra_pound

kceire wrote: »

It's way out of date. 2 houses on my road sold in the last 3 months, and nothing up there. One house I was admiring out on the growth road sold 2 months ago, nothing on the PPR yet.

Are you accessing it through web browser or dedicated app?

Gumbo

ezra_pound wrote: »

Are you accessing it through web browser or dedicated app?

IE in work and chrome at home.
Is there an app? Is it more up to date?

ezra_pound

kceire wrote: »

IE in work and chrome at home.
Is there an app? Is it more up to date?

I was using an app briefly but it wasn't updating newer data from the register. It would appear that the solicitors for the properties you're interested in were slow to register.

jmayo

Frank Black wrote: »

Can't see this being the defining issue for residential property prices. 4G will be introduced country-wide next year and should be speed of 5-6Mb (or so we are promised), and who is to say what will be around in 5-10yrs (5G, 6G?).

Do you know how poor our 3G coverage is and could you try and define countrywide when it comes to broadband rollout ?
Countrywide is not Dublin city together with a couple of other major towns/cities.
Wipee 5 to 6 MB when everyone else will be at 50.

malibu4u wrote: »

to even out prices around the country a bit the government should decentralise a few govt depts. out of Dublin: that will increase the supply in Dublin a bit and help stop the slide outside of Dublin. Win win!

welcome back tom parlon

Dannyboy83

Farmer Pudsey wrote: »

Have we reached the bottom of the fall in house prices except in area's which have very low population density's.

I find you can't generalise about the market as a whole anymore due to the nature of the ongoing problems affecting Ireland but I think it's fair to say the primary problem is still access to the credit.

I can only really speak for the Cork market, I've been observing for a long time and I've just about finalised the purchase of my first house.
There has been a near full correction in the First time buyers/starter homes/bottom rung of the market in the commuter belt and in the metropolitan area.
Inner city is more difficult to say due to the low volume of sales (owing to unrealistic executor sales it seems), Cork is still like a doughnut with an empty interior.
Mid to upper market is still very chaotic, also some compound issues such as subsidence/flooding affecting many of the best areas of Cork.

I wouldn't expect to see any prices increases at any level until there is better focused investment in Cork, and until Cork Airport becomes independent of the DAA (urgently needed), but I would expect to see gradual but consistent price falls in line with the reduction in our incomes due to increasing taxation/natural attrition... Tax rates are already extremely high, so it's difficult to see how much higher they can go, but I'm sure there will be no hesitation to increase Property and Water taxes several times over the next few years.

There is a big rent bubble in Cork due to the virtual collapse of Waterford and emptying out of rural areas in Munster.
The rent bubble in South Dublin is becoming extreme and will require intervention imo.


p.s.
Regarding decentralisation, the government should be centralised - just not in Dublin.

Should be near Celbridge or Maynooth, otherwise near Swords. There is fantastic infrastructure in place and plenty of capacity

CueCard7

Why do people think that house prices going up is a good thing?

Zamboni

CueCard7 wrote: »

Why do people think that house prices going up is a good thing?

You would have to ask Michael Noonan that one.

Scortho

Dannyboy83 wrote: »

I find you can't generalise about the market as a whole anymore due to the nature of the ongoing problems affecting Ireland but I think it's fair to say the primary problem is still access to the credit.

I can only really speak for the Cork market, I've been observing for a long time and I've just about finalised the purchase of my first house.
There has been a near full correction in the First time buyers/starter homes/bottom rung of the market in the commuter belt and in the metropolitan area.
Inner city is more difficult to say due to the low volume of sales (owing to unrealistic executor sales it seems), Cork is still like a doughnut with an empty interior.
Mid to upper market is still very chaotic, also some compound issues such as subsidence/flooding affecting many of the best areas of Cork.

I wouldn't expect to see any prices increases at any level until there is better focused investment in Cork, and until Cork Airport becomes independent of the DAA (urgently needed), but I would expect to see gradual but consistent price falls in line with the reduction in our incomes due to increasing taxation/natural attrition... Tax rates are already extremely high, so it's difficult to see how much higher they can go, but I'm sure there will be no hesitation to increase Property and Water taxes several times over the next few years.

There is a big rent bubble in Cork due to the virtual collapse of Waterford and emptying out of rural areas in Munster.
The rent bubble in South Dublin is becoming extreme and will require intervention imo.


p.s.
Regarding decentralisation, the government should be centralised - just not in Dublin.

Should be near Celbridge or Maynooth, otherwise near Swords. There is fantastic infrastructure in place and plenty of capacity

I live in celbridge and the broadband is **** where I am. UPC stops 200 m away and I'm less than a mile outside the town.
Don't get me started on mobile phone coverage.

Scofflaw

CueCard7 wrote: »

Why do people think that house prices going up is a good thing?

Oh, it reflects our sound fundamentals, doesn't it? The solid, sustainable base of our economy.

After all, it did last time, right?

talking out of my fundamental,
Scofflaw

Scofflaw

In other news, it seems that the UK and Sweden are currently at risk of housing bubbles.

There is a 77 per cent probability that the UK is in the midst of a housing bubble, according to academic research with London at significantly more risk than other regions.

James Mitchell, professor of economic modelling and forecasting at Warwick Business School, carried out a regional assessment of the housing market in the UK and concluded that there is a clear risk that most regions are in the grip of house price bubbles.

“The Swedish housing market is dangerously overvalued,” says Bengt Hansson, a researcher at the Swedish National Board of Housing, Building and Planning (Boverket).

In October, he estimated house prices were 25 percent above fair market value, with apartments even more overvalued.

As prices have risen, buyers have taken on more and more mortgage debt, aided by record-low interest rates and interest-only mortgages. Household debt soared to 173 percent of disposable income at the end of 2012, after having hovered between 90 and 100 percent throughout the previous decade.

cordially,
Scofflaw

everdead.ie

Scofflaw wrote: »

In other news, it seems that the UK and Sweden are currently at risk of housing bubbles.





cordially,
Scofflaw

Given that the ECB sets Irelands rates which as could be seen during our Bubble were needed for Germany but adverse for ourselves should the Irish Government Introduce a new Tax on Mortgages which could be used to prevent a property bubble in the future.

For example a the ability to add between 0% and 1% onto the ECB rate to prevent Irish mortgage holders from going mad borrowing what we can't afford?


It would both give the Irish Government of managing the rate at which we borrow and provide extra funds for Government.


The only issue then is a Government willing to use it.

The_Honeybadger

everdead.ie wrote: »

Given that the ECB sets Irelands rates which as could be seen during our Bubble were needed for Germany but adverse for ourselves should the Irish Government Introduce a new Tax on Mortgages which could be used to prevent a property bubble in the future.

For example a the ability to add between 0% and 1% onto the ECB rate to prevent Irish mortgage holders from going mad borrowing what we can't afford?


It would both give the Irish Government of managing the rate at which we borrow and provide extra funds for Government.


The only issue then is a Government willing to use it.

The shinners would have a field day with that. I can just hear pearse dohertys rant already.

There should be some instrument available to government to offset unfavourable ecb rates however.

Farmer Pudsey

The reason I started this thread is to see what the feeling on the house market. I was wondering if there was as may around as earlier in the year predicting house prices had not bottomed out and that after a few months we would see another collapse. There is nobody say that they are waiting for houses to fall further, this is a good indication that we have reached the bottom and that consumers are no longer afraid of prices falling.

I take this as a good sign as it will encourage builders back into the market, they will be able to cost the building of a house and have confidance that after building they will be selling into a stable market. Also buyers will have confidance if they spend there money or take out a mortgage they will not be in negative equity next year.

However there will be no boom I thing as if builders start to develop on Dublin they may keep a lid on prices.

I also think the excess housing along the west coast will be moveon over the next 1-2 years, However you will have cheap houses in Leitrim for a while

Scofflaw

mickeyk wrote: »

The shinners would have a field day with that. I can just hear pearse dohertys rant already.

There should be some instrument available to government to offset unfavourable ecb rates however.

As far as I know, that would be perfectly possible - as would capping mortgage levels compared to salaries (recently done in Canada), increased stamp duties, requiring mortgages to have higher deposit-to-loan ratios (which has just been done in the UK), cut repayment periods (also Canada), and other direct tools.

There are also indirect tools, or indirect ways of doing the above, such as requiring banks to set aside more capital against all or particular types of mortgage (residential, or buy to let), which makes them less willing to lend in that particular way.

Interest rates, in fact, are a pretty poor tool for managing property bubbles, because if you jack up the overall interest rate to cool down the property market, you also cool down the personal and business credit markets, which may not, at that point, need cooling.

Say we had a genuine bubble in Dublin, and the CBI set our interest rates. The obvious response would be to jack the interest rates up - but households and businesses are also heavily in debt, and in the case of businesses, in perpetual need of credit. Such a move might cool the Dublin bubble, but at the expense of cooling already chilled households and businesses.

The thing about our bubble was that not only were the government and CBI not thinking of non-interest-rate ways to cool it, the government was actively pouring fuel on it with mortgage interest reliefs, special deals for first time buyers, grants for building in out of the way places, etc. Meanwhile, credit conditions for (non-property) businesses weren't particularly good, as anyone who tried to get a business loan during the Celtic Tiger will tell you - and higher interest rates would have made that worse.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Balmed Out

Farmer Pudsey wrote: »

The reason I started this thread is to see what the feeling on the house market. I was wondering if there was as may around as earlier in the year predicting house prices had not bottomed out and that after a few months we would see another collapse. There is nobody say that they are waiting for houses to fall further, this is a good indication that we have reached the bottom and that consumers are no longer afraid of prices falling.

I take this as a good sign as it will encourage builders back into the market, they will be able to cost the building of a house and have confidance that after building they will be selling into a stable market. Also buyers will have confidance if they spend there money or take out a mortgage they will not be in negative equity next year.

However there will be no boom I thing as if builders start to develop on Dublin they may keep a lid on prices.

I also think the excess housing along the west coast will be moveon over the next 1-2 years, However you will have cheap houses in Leitrim for a while

I think there are plenty of areas where prices haven't bottomed out, the market is very different in different areas of the country. Outside of popular urban areas or areas which have seen severe falls I think there are plenty of areas where more is to come.

Very low volume of sales
Half the sales are cash buyers
I suspect a large amount of the rest are ppl with large 100,000 + deposits and low ltv mortgages.
Neither of the above can last indefinitely.
There will be some repossessions that may alleviate the shortage of supply in some areas.

On the other hand rents are very high in much of the country and while that continues it doesn't make much sense to sell at a loss.

irish gent

does any body think the house prices are now stabling and will stay for the next 4 years thanks..

my friend

macraignil wrote: »

I qualified as a science teacher in 2003 Why are you interested?

Explains your negative outlook

Dannyboy83

irish gent wrote: »

does any body think the house prices are now stabling and will stay for the next 4 years thanks..

Depends what region you are referring to and what type of house.

Dublin - increasing
Cork - Stabilising (I bought in April this year, prices have increased slightly since then. The credit situation is definitely improving thanks to Online Banking. Local branches still seem to be refusing everyone AFAIK)

Anywhere else - is it urban or rural? apartment or house? 2 bed or 3 bed?

Case by case basis imo.