What's with the tumbleweed?

gosplan

Few listings, nothing happening. No-one's even talking about property at the moment.

What's going on?


If this is the future of sub 3% growth yoy, we've just lost a major national conversation topic.

Guess the weather forum will be hopping soon.

NotCominBack

The Dubs won so most people taking the week off

back to norm next week

johnnyskeleton

gosplan wrote: »

No-one's even talking about property at the moment.

I would say the opposite - there is a lot of talk about property at the moment.

But it is not the "I predict a massive crash" / "No, the fundamentals are sound" / "We are in for a soft landing" kind of heated discusssion.

Instead, everyone seems to be coming from the same position - would like to buy and have certainty the market, Dublin seems to be too expensive, no easy answers, hard to predict what happens next.

It generates as much talk, but the disagreements are not as pronounced and the issues are more pragmatic difficulties rather than macroeconomic theories. There are a lot of threads from people who want to buy but dont know where to start or are afraid to buy because of the NE horror stories from people a few years older than them. Very few people are pinning their colours to the mast with unqualified predictions.

Pac2015

There are a good few threads on here about property mainly people asking questions about their situations as in mortgages the CB new rules, savings and banks.

I think the property market has slowed up alot but again I think its down to the likes of the 2nd time buyers now needing the 20% deposit so have to save more.

Victor

The main problem at the moment is supply in response to increased population (the 'Pope's babies' having their own babies) and employment and consequent household formation.

As the banks aren't lending and lots of investor money sis being taken up in unravelling NAMA, few properties are being built or coming available for sale / letting. There are existing properties, but they are either in the wrong location or are in need of renovation or reconstruction.

As a consequence of the supply-demand imbalance, low-income renters and people who are substantially behind in their mortgages are becoming homeless.

None of these topics are sexy enough for dinner parties.

gosplan

I rather mean where is the autumn selling season?

There were more houses coming on in July/August.

mel123

I think its more where are the buyers, the houses are not going up (on the market) possibly because the buyers are gone from the market for the time being. Investors are gone, and 2nd time buyers are gone because of the new deposit rules for a while it seems.

fret_wimp2

Where are the buyers?

Purely personal experience but my group of friends all early to mid thirties, getting married, having kids and settling down are prime candidates of house buyers.

And none of us own a property for one reason:

-Prices in Dublin (where we all live) are crazy. None of us are willing to settle for the property in our bracket. There is property out there sure, but everything needs to move down by a notch. Thats a generalization, im sure there are some houses worth the money but they are few and far between.

-The 3.5x doesnt affect most of us directly, in that we all know how much we are willing to spend on a particular suitable property and even if we could get the mortgage, we dont want to be in up to our necks for 5 or 6 times our annual salary. we are not stupid and have learned from other peoples mistakes. The quality of the property available at our 3.5x is the issue, very little of it is worth it.

End result, we all still rent, helping to push rental demand and prices up.

Archaeoliz

We're trying to buy (rural) and there's just nothing coming onto the market... we're 2nd (well 3rd) time buyers, sold and completed on our house, got finance, got solicitor ready. Tumbleweed; agreed.

mel123

fret_wimp2 wrote: »

Where are the buyers?

Purely personal experience but my group of friends all early to mid thirties, getting married, having kids and settling down are prime candidates of house buyers.

And none of us own a property for one reason:

-Prices in Dublin (where we all live) are crazy. None of us are willing to settle for the property in our bracket. There is property out there sure, but everything needs to move down by a notch. Thats a generalization, im sure there are some houses worth the money but they are few and far between.

-The 3.5x doesnt affect most of us directly, in that we all know how much we are willing to spend on a particular suitable property and even if we could get the mortgage, we dont want to be in up to our necks for 5 or 6 times our annual salary. we are not stupid and have learned from other peoples mistakes. The quality of the property available at our 3.5x is the issue, very little of it is worth it.

End result, we all still rent, helping to push rental demand and prices up.

I totally agree with you on nearly all points, however, I think the 3.5x salary and 20% deposit (for 2nd time buyers) massively effects people and the market.
Currently I have my deposit and looking to buy, however, if I didn't, while renting, id find it almost impossible to save on what is classed as an average salary and buying a house solo. I'm not saying these rules are not a good thing, but I think they have defiantly impacted the market.

fret_wimp2

mel123 wrote: »

I totally agree with you on nearly all points, however, I think the 3.5x salary and 20% deposit (for 2nd time buyers) massively effects people and the market.
Currently I have my deposit and looking to buy, however, if I didn't, while renting, id find it almost impossible to save on what is classed as an average salary and buying a house solo. I'm not saying these rules are not a good thing, but I think they have defiantly impacted the market.

Exactly, but its not that the 3.5x salary is the issue, its that any property you are interested in is way outside "your" 3.5x borrowing cap.

This means one of 2 things:

-You dont earn enough to fund the property you are interested in and need to lower expectations. you need a higher salary.

-property is far to expensive. anything that falls within your 3.5x cap is not worth the asking price. anything worth the asking price is way outside your 3.5x cap. even on an average salary you cannot afford an average property.

2nd point is the one you seem to fall under.

To confirm it yourself, go onto daft, limit your search to property you can get enough funds for (i.e. your 3.5x limit) and see if anything appeals or reaches what you consider an acceptable standard. completely subjective I know but it gets the point across.


The 3.5x cap & 20% deposit are In my opinion very good controls to prevent large loans being passed to people who are likely to have difficulty paying them back.
If you cant save 20% of the price of the property, chances are you're not great with money or dont earn enough to afford the property.
If your salary x 3.5 is below the cost of the property minus the deposit, you definately cant afford it. you cant pay a mortgage when you simply dont earn the money.