Distorted property market?

mrwhite2

It's mad really have a decent income with a good history of saving and mortgage approval, I live in the west of Ireland and can't find a decent house to buy. The rental market is rubbish with no quality, landlords who won't fix things and no security.

There isn't really many houses at all suitable for family homes. There is a lot of cheap places on the market but everyone I look at has serious issues. Many structural but the rest are in estates which are deemed unfinished therefore no bank will give you a mortgage even if the estates appear in good condition. The receivers realize this and use good prices to lure you in. The last house I viewed I was told the receiver wanted to see a photocopy of my bank account to prove I had the full funds before a bid could be made. Obviously as they knew there would be legal issues and a cash sale is the way to go.

The 2 houses that I have viewed that seemed reasonable seemed complicated. The first I was told wasn't really for sale when I offered the guide price as the sellers were doing a deal with the bank. The second was a decent house but way overpriced which the estate agent admitted but said that's what they owe the bank so they won't negotiate.

I really can't understand how with a decent income and living outside the main urban areas how I can't purchase a reasonable house at a reasonable price in a property crash. One of main main problems is that the houses in the unfinished estates are getting more tempting. As the years go on my savings build up and I am closer to being able to buy in cash. I have been warned however that this could be fools gold. I now live in a decent rental house but the landlord is broke and won't fix things like heating etc. I could move out but the rental market is so poor.

I hear about the poor people who bought in the boom with negative equity but at least they still have a house probably on a tracker morgage and have the prospect of the bank doing a deal.
What about the poor first time buyers who can't find a home and if we do get one will pay a hell of a lot more in interest if we do. If we build it will probably cost more now than a few years ago.

Shedzafew

Hi,

Firstly, how long has the heating been broken? If it is longer than 2 weeks I would fix the heating myself and deduct cost from my rent.

As there has been so new houses built in the last 7 years a lot of the stock on the market is in need of some upgrading. You may have limited options if you are not willing to do some work to a property. An alternative may be to buy a plot of land and build the house you want.

mrwhite2

Heating is working but not 100percent. Don't want a row with landlord as so few other houses out there to rent for a family. Can fix it if needs be but hate the feeling of rows with landlord. I am 40 not a student. I am willing to build/renovate but if the houses are originally so poor it's not worth it. Would love to build but sites are non existent or in unfinished estates.

It's mad as I know others like me and if the property market wasn't distorted we would be building/renovating and stimulating the local economy

yoshiktk

Dont worry You're not the only one. Me with my wife have similar problem.
As we plan to stay here buying a house would be obvious move but with current market for us looks it just impossible.
Loads of rubbish ones around our area, the prices aren't maybe to high but still going for something like this would be a suicide for our wallet. To get it back into shape would mean spending around +100k € . I'm crazy but not that much.
Perfect would be building one, from the scratch made just for us, but i'm afraid it would be to hard for us to afford it.
Cost of a site would be around 100k € to 150k € so to get in our budget we would had to build a house for 150k €, with average cost of 1000-1500€ per sq. m. , a small 100 sq. m. house with decent finish could cost 250k-350k €.
Add few extras to that and price jump through the roof.
It looks that we'll be damned to rent till retirement.

TheDoc

I'm on the flipside, I'm starting my family, with baby uno on the way, and we want to move from our apartment into a house, renting.

Renting market around the Fingal area is overpriced for small rubbish, or just low availability. People are snatching up properties left right and centre. I'll probably come to some temporary arrangement with my landlord as we have a good relationship, but we are due to move out in like 3 weeks.

We had two properties organised, and got ****ed over last minute. I'm certain someone offered them a higher then advertised rate of rent. Probably something I can do about it legally, but couldn't be arsed the hassle, too much on my plate at the moment.

Had a chat with AIB's, BOI's and a number of banks, and oddly enough they have no problem signing off a mortage for me. So buying is something I'd actually be eligible for. Problem being that as a 25 year old with kid en route, I don't exactly have savings to call upon.

I might look into bulking my savings up over the next year, in the hope of then actually buying a house.

Planning on learning and reading about buying now, so I'm ahead of the game when it comes to buying hopefully in 18 months or so. Would be great to own a home, for long periods growing up imagined that buying was never going to be possible for my generation.

yoshiktk

TheDoc wrote: »

I'm on the flipside, I'm starting my family, with baby uno on the way, and we want to move from our apartment into a house, renting.

Renting market around the Fingal area is overpriced for small rubbish, or just low availability. People are snatching up properties left right and centre. I'll probably come to some temporary arrangement with my landlord as we have a good relationship, but we are due to move out in like 3 weeks.

We had two properties organised, and got ****ed over last minute. I'm certain someone offered them a higher then advertised rate of rent. Probably something I can do about it legally, but couldn't be arsed the hassle, too much on my plate at the moment.

Had a chat with AIB's, BOI's and a number of banks, and oddly enough they have no problem signing off a mortage for me. So buying is something I'd actually be eligible for. Problem being that as a 25 year old with kid en route, I don't exactly have savings to call upon.

I might look into bulking my savings up over the next year, in the hope of then actually buying a house.

Planning on learning and reading about buying now, so I'm ahead of the game when it comes to buying hopefully in 18 months or so. Would be great to own a home, for long periods growing up imagined that buying was never going to be possible for my generation.

The same in Bray/Greystones. Normal two bed, in decent state, is around +1100€. Rubbish ones are cheaper but I would never move to something just to save money, coming back from work in to nice house is a big factor for me.
Prefer to pay extra for that.
What bothers me that with not so many "good" houses/apt. to rent ppl tend to take anything just for peace of mind. Around end of January we were on viewing of apt which on daft look really great. Big and spacious in nice area. At viewing we were surprised to see paint falling off, mold on windows and 2cm layer of dust on the floor. A shock how someone could leave a apt is such condition plus I could never imagine to leave a place in such state if I were renting it. But still the pros were better then the cones so we said to agent that we would took it if the LL sort things out, paint and others. At evening when I got the text from agent I couldn't believe again. The LL decided that apt is fine and She wont do anything there.... It was gone in next few days.
It's a shame, probably its gonna be a wreck after another year or two if the LL decide not to do anything.
We had similar problem on our current/previous apt, we wanted to refresh it. After three years it just needed it. But again LL said no. Probably a lots of stories like that all around the country.
For me it's a hard time for buying but ppl which want to rent dont have easy life as well.

mrwhite2

That's my point that the rental market is hard especially for families as you are at the landlords mercy. We are starting to look at buying properties with issues due to lack of choice. Really free if the government/banks just released properties onto the market and let them fall to proper prices with a proper supply the market would bounce. Lots of people would be tempted to buy would give work to trades people/builders etc etc, instead it feels like lots of people saving and waiting.

So much talk about not repossessing properties but what about the people that don't even own a home.

Techyo

I have experienced the same thing in the west of Ireland, I put an offer on a 2 bed apartment in January last year and eventually it was sale agreed. It had to go through the vendors bank but nothing happened with it so I pulled out of the deal towards the end of last year I got fed up of waiting for the contracts to be sent to my solicitor or that was the excuse anyways, I can't understand how it would take so long to get contracts ready and send them to a solicitor! I then found a nice 3 bed semi and put an offer on and it was just about to be accepted as I was the highest bidder on it for a while until a cash buyer investor came in and blew me out of the water, basically as I am a first time buyer on a budget I hadn't a chance with it! It seems so hard to buy as a first time buyer because of the standard of properties being sold and your up against cash buyers and investors.

newbie2013

yoshiktk wrote: »

Dont worry You're not the only one. Me with my wife have similar problem.
As we plan to stay here buying a house would be obvious move but with current market for us looks it just impossible.
Loads of rubbish ones around our area, the prices aren't maybe to high but still going for something like this would be a suicide for our wallet. To get it back into shape would mean spending around +100k € . I'm crazy but not that much.
Perfect would be building one, from the scratch made just for us, but i'm afraid it would be to hard for us to afford it.
Cost of a site would be around 100k € to 150k € so to get in our budget we would had to build a house for 150k €, with average cost of 1000-1500€ per sq. m. , a small 100 sq. m. house with decent finish could cost 250k-350k €.
Add few extras to that and price jump through the roof.
It looks that we'll be damned to rent till retirement.

Hrs in the west so he won't be paying ridiculous prices like that for a site. I've seen sites with planning sell for 20k in mayo

mrwhite2

It seems like receivers are trying to unload the worst properties off there books and say sold as seen. The first property I tried to buy the receivers solicitors sais they were only providing limited documents as it was a bank sale. Don't see how this should make a difference. A sale is asale surely. I guess the banks are trying to unload any properties with issues off there books ASAP. They are trying to tempt buyers who are experiencing supply problems with attractive prices and unload the problems onto them. In a normal functioning property market you would say it's up to the buyers solicitors to advice. What I have seen recently is people including myself start to be tempted to buy properties that solicitors say have issues such as no management company as there is nothing else. The banks I feel see this as a good opportunity to firstly unload there worst property onto desperate buyers who have little choice with a rental market that is unregulated.

sawdoubters

the banks are holding onto foreclosed properties so theres not a drop in house prices,but they cant keep them on the books forever

propertypin is a better website for propertys,also look at price register to see what prices houses are realliy being sold at

the asking price and selling price is a lot lower


https://www.propertypriceregister.ie/website/npsra/pprweb.nsf/page/ppr-home-en

BenEadir

OP, why don't you buy a site and build a house to your own specification/budget? If there are no sites for sale just identify some areas you'd like to live in and discreetly approach the farmer in a respectful manner i.e. tell them who you are and that you'd like to live in the area so would they consider selling you a site to build a home on? Don't forget it's not just about price for the farmer, it's important that he likes you as you're going to be neighbours plus he'll want to know what sort of house you plan to build. He won't necessarily want to sell you a site if you're going to build a Southfork type monstrosity on it. Not only would it look out of place but it would make him feel like to poor neighbour.

If you use your loaf, take other peoples feelings and circumstances into consideration and are flexible and determined you'll get the job done.

Ben

MouseTail

mrwhite2 wrote: »

It seems like receivers are trying to unload the worst properties off there books and say sold as seen. The first property I tried to buy the receivers solicitors sais they were only providing limited documents as it was a bank sale. Don't see how this should make a difference. A sale is asale surely. I guess the banks are trying to unload any properties with issues off there books ASAP.

That has been happening for the past couple of years, reposessed properties simply won't have the proof of clean title, compliance etc that a normal sale would have. These are being purchased by cash buyers (as are unmortgageable), and issues being tidied up after sale. The low price will reflect the risk involved.

Lantus

Its not the market that is distorted to my mind. People like yourself are just now seeing the property market with a much more critical and clearer mind.

ten years ago people would of had blinkers on with regards to any building issue, location or price no matter how serious and solicitors would of not even of mentioned it never mind banks. It was just a gold rush.

Today we view the market with an incredibly critical eye and question everything regarding potential property purchases. There are fundamental problems underlying the Irish property market in relation to quality of build (which is still a time bomb waiting to hit....) and negative equity and so on.

it all creates a slender amount of 'real' quality property available for genuine people regardless of where they are located.

TheDoc

BenThere wrote: »

OP, why don't you buy a site and build a house to your own specification/budget? If there are no sites for sale just identify some areas you'd like to live in and discreetly approach the farmer in a respectful manner i.e. tell them who you are and that you'd like to live in the area so would they consider selling you a site to build a home on? Don't forget it's not just about price for the farmer, it's important that he likes you as you're going to be neighbours plus he'll want to know what sort of house you plan to build. He won't necessarily want to sell you a site if you're going to build a Southfork type monstrosity on it. Not only would it look out of place but it would make him feel like to poor neighbour.

If you use your loaf, take other peoples feelings and circumstances into consideration and are flexible and determined you'll get the job done.

Ben

Jaysus don't know where you live, but unless your hiding a pretty large lottery winning, your a bit limited into buying a plot of land and building your own home.

I've a friend who was dead set on this tactic. First stumbling block was the price of land. Land owners refusing to accept its not the Celtic tiger, and their plot of land is not ACTUALLY worth millions of euro. But they are holding out for the inevitable knock from the government or builders who WILL pay the millions to get it.

Next is tackling the various authorities for planning permission. unbelievable stress and red tape he was telling me in regards to getting it sorted.

Then you have the contractors and builders. Costing an arm and a leg, with pretty lengthy estimated time of completion.

In the end, he upped sticks, went to Poland where the misses is from. bought a plot of land for 15k, got everything sorted in the local office in a week, and then building started right away.

All in all costing him roughly 90k to create an outrageous house.

The same spec and design had reached over 1.4m here before he had even got final figures from builders.

Obviously its a massive difference in terms of location, but in Ireland it very much appears to be a case of building your own home if you can get the land for free from family, or get at a good price cause you know,related or befriend a prospective land owner.

I'd love to build my own house, might start hanging around farmer markets at the weekend and make friends

marathonic

TheDoc wrote: »

Jaysus don't know where you live, but unless your hiding a pretty large lottery winning, your a bit limited into buying a plot of land and building your own home.

Here in Donegal, you are unable to build a house a cheaply as you can buy one - even if you got the land for nothing.