Softening house market?

Donald Trump

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119945670#Comment_119945670

I gather you think your response shows that you are "smart". When it only shows you don't understand potential implications.

Anyway, more on the topic here. It hit the redemption limit about an hour ago

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-12-01/blackstone-real-estate-fund-tops-limit-for-redemption-requests

Jonnyc135

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119945588#Comment_119945588

That's extremely interesting, it may very well be under pressure.

Back in 2019, CRH offloaded a poor enough preforming European distribution company to them for 1.9 billion and Blackstone gladly swept it up. If CRH couldn't squeeze anymore productivity out of it then I'd say Blackstone could have got burned badly by that deal.

Be no loss seeing a few institutional landlords get a rude awakening and if one falls then the spotlight will be on all the others balance sheets.

Bass Reeves

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119945740#Comment_119945740

But higher living standards cost money. When I left school the other lads that did apprentice's earned I would say below a median wage. Teachers, Nursres, Prison officers, Gardai, etc were earning more than qualified tradespeople at the start of there working life. A qualified trades person now earn as much as many of these at there max front year 2-3 after they are qualified

Now while the average house has probably less blocks, plastering and timber ( unless timber frame) it has double the plumbing and electrical.

So we if going to college a student spends 4-5 years in an ensuites bedroom compared to a 3-4 lads in room in digs, somebody has to pay for the extra resources used. It's costing 2-4 to e the money to put everything into that room before we include the ensuite

Donald Trump

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119946330#Comment_119946330

The things that old people go on about being luxuries are often not actually luxuries in modern times because they are now relatively cheap. "In my day I was only able to fly to London twice a year whereas now I see some young people going back and forth for a few long weekends a year" .... which doesn't take into account that a flight back in the day might have been more than a weeks wages whereas the student today is probably getting over and back for 20 quid. I hear that some of these pampered students these days even insist in indoor toilets rather than sh1tting into a bucket in a breezy outhouse too.

And I'm not sure where you are getting this guff about en-suites. I know a good few current students. One coming to mind now who is living in the front room of a rented house she shares with a gang of other students in Dublin. I don't think she demanded an en-suite be installed off of what is supposed to be a sitting room.

Cyrus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119945712#Comment_119945712

What’s coming mr bearish sound bite ?

Bass Reeves

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119946386#Comment_119946386

Dwic we have managed to automate many processes, especially in the area of technology. The amount of automation in building is relatively small compared to elsewhere in industry it exists but it has taken more the risk and manual labour out of certain areas of it.

On you example of air travel an air hostess in the 70's probably earned 20-30% more than a tradesperson and did 50% of the hours they do now. An airline pilot was a demi god back then. But I am not going to digress in there.

Most specific provided student accommodation will have a high percentage of ensuites. Even where rooms ate not in specific student accomodation it is mostly two rooms to a bathroom in exceptional cases three rooms

Donald Trump

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119946590#Comment_119946590

Quick question for you Bass. Transport yourself back to your early 20's. Have a think about the standard of living that your grandparents had at that time.

Is your standard of living today worse than, better than, or equal to what they had on an absolute level at your current age? Lets even consider the basics of food and shelter. Comforts in your house etc.

(I don't think most students get to live in student accommodation btw but that is a different matter. You are trying to compare people making use of old facilities with purpose built facilities. It would likely be far more efficient to build a dedicated student block with en-suites from scratch on a brownfield site than to use that site to build a couple of semi-Ds with only one toilet in each)

Beigepaint

Regarding the guff about en-suites, I refer to my comment about how certain posters in this forum only know a handful of people under 35, and those they know are wasteful rich kids with iPhone 14s and 222 Golfs and don’t understand how the other 99% of people under 35 live.

RichardAnd

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119946580#Comment_119946580

Well if a big investment fund goes belly up, I would wager that a state-sponsored bailout will be on the cards.

Bass Reeves

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119946601#Comment_119946601

But that increase in living standard costs, somebody somewhere is or has paid for it.

You seem to think that those in the construction sector should return to the virtual indentured slavery that was there lot until the noughties.

We have shifted resources away from the basic of food and shelter and transfered them to lifestyle choices.

The biggest factor in housing is supply. Because of restricted supply we have the issue we are trying to deal with. However the resources required are in more demand and there is less of them

That is in either Labour, skills or materials.

Donald Trump

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119946675#Comment_119946675

To be fair, it's not going "belly up". In order to prevent firesales it limits the amount that can be redeemed in different time periods (this is a liquidity protection mechanism). The pertinent information is that investors (which tend to be wealthy people and institutions) are minded to be pulling their money out. There wouldn't be any state bailout if they did go to the wall.

Donald Trump

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119946687#Comment_119946687

What would you make more money off? Building a block of 50 student apartments with en-suites and selling them for say 200k each, or throwing up 10 semi-Ds on the same site and selling them for 400k each? Building something from greenfield or brownfield is usually more economic than trying to retrofit. I think that these en-suites you are referring to are newly purpose built student housing.

Your own standard of living today is likely higher than your grandparents was at your age. I doubt it's because they were lazy or eating too many avocados. I'm using that example to point out that it isn't really valid to do a simple comparison of standards from different time periods. You comparing your own late teens or early 20's to late teens or early 20's of today and concluding something from it would be the same as me comparing your own standard of living today with your grandparents back then and concluding they must have been lazy because they didn't have a centrally heated house and freezer full of foods from around the world.

IWW2900

Is there a way to mute Donald Trump?, keeps on waffling about non related topics.

Donald, you speak more rubbish then the real thing.

Donald Trump

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119946873#Comment_119946873

Well, below is an example of your own stellar contribution from just above

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119945712#Comment_119945712

Luckily you warned us Nostradamus. Although it's not really fair to be teasing us and not telling us the details of your secret knowledge and insight.

Thread is about the housing market. I commented above on people trying to get their investments out of a massive property investment fund. And also that purpose built accommodation with dreaded en-suites might not be that inefficient compared to "traditional" housing.

mcsean2163

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119946675#Comment_119946675

Doubt it. We're an extremely indebted nation now....

WhiteWalls

It's amazing how we're in December now yet months ago on here people were predicting the economy would be in a ball by now. Hasn't happened.

Yes some small businesses may close in January but its not near as grim as predicted

Cyrus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119946675#Comment_119946675

thanks, i was more interested in what that poster had to say specifically rather than some variant of:

the world is ending

people have no idea whats coming

there will be blood on the streets wait and see

etc etc

Bass Reeves

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119946723#Comment_119946723

You are gone off on another tangent completely again Donald but I will explain to you

It would be moot which would be more profitable. The student apartments would take longer to get planning and cost multiples to design. As well the builder would have to complete the structure either through bank or other finance and will see no profit until the complete structure is finished. The ten houses semi D's

Could be stage build and sold even if not it would be a relatively easy process to finance and build with less regulations to be adhered to. It actually shows you lack of understanding of of the building sector. Pre COVID I remember reading an article of somewhat similar issues in Commuter towns in Cork, one served by a rail connection the LA had a density requirements that needed about 50,% apartments in site, builder were not building on the sites as there was not that demand for that density. They could sell semiD's and townhouses but there was very little demand for apartments

On my grandparents both them and my greatGP, farmed and made a living off a farm, actually they were extremely well off ( for there time)as there was an Orchard and they sold a lot of eating apples( before the advent of Grannysmiths and Pink Ladies). However agriculture efficiency now means the same farm was is not cable of sustaining less than the minimum wage.

Productivity changed the living to be got from it. Considering that they had a good standard of living for there era now there is no sustainable income from it.

From the 60- now cheap energy drove living standards. Only in the 90/00's did discretionary income spending balloon. Now because resources are more expensive and availability being curtailed it discretionary spending is coming under threat.

Basically what that means is that building cost more due to a multiple of factors

fliball123

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119947227#Comment_119947227

I think the majority of sentiment was that we would see the end of the year out and December is not looking great either the only saving grace is the fact is Xmas falls in this month. People seem to forget the quintessential Irish mentality of having a last hoorah before the gloom kicks in. I put an analogy of being in the pub and the bell for last orders sound which I would equate to now (December with xmas around the corner) and it being last orders and being half p1ssed ye go up and order 3 pints for you and your group of merry makers and a whiskey to top it off. Slapping it on the card as you have ran out of cash and Its great while your drinking it and your buddies think your the man for buying this round, yet come the next morning (Jan/Feb/March of next year) when you have to get up for work , your heads in bits , you have a few Scheckels (not enough for bus fair) and your scrambling to see if you can find the rest of the fare.

Our politicians are not the only ones who kick financial issues down the road (there was a huge uptake of spending going on credit cards towards the end of this year). With higher energy costs and inflation still raging and interest rates set to climb a good deal higher there will be no options for the unwashed masses but to cut right back to the bare essentials and this is already happening. Unfortunately we are going to see a lot more job losses and I can see us having to pay more tax and getting less services for the next couple of years due to the recession that will be starting early next year. The tech jobs are eroding away with Intel the latest getting in on the act. Not to mention SMEs simply hitting the wall with the increase in costs that they simply cannot continue to pay and stay solvent and a lot are hanging on for the xmas bounce like every year Jan, Feb and even most of March are horrible times for anyone working in certain areas in the economy like restaurants, pubs etc.. Already insolvencies are way up from last year.

Bradz213

There is a bit of softening in the market but not sure if that's down to interest rates etc, due to the time of year or being overpriced to start with.

We went sale agreed in August for 85k over asking. We got 60k over asking on our sale. Probably around an increase of 12/15% respectively on the asking prices.

We missed out on a lot of house and tracked them when they closed so I feel I have a decent idea of the value in the area we looked at. The asking price means nothing because generally estate agents just put it up at around the price something similar sold for.

I've seen a few houses go up recently that were at least 10% overpriced to start with and either have dropped in price or have no bids on them yet.

RichardAnd

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119948468#Comment_119948468

I think that what we're seeing is the shedding of the inflation that was caused by the lockdowns. Probably, the market is going back where it was in 2019, and it likely will rise from there. Demand is very high, the country is awash with cash and the state has proven that it will sacrifice just about anything to keep prices up. In other words, I think the market is softening, but it's not crashing.

I could, of course, be wrong, and I actually hope that I am wrong. We need something to knock the stuffing out of this market, because it's causing a demographic disaster.

DataDude

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119948592#Comment_119948592

Ignoring possible effects of interest rates the above would seem sensible.

Only counter is average earnings are up about 13% from Q3 2019 to now and probably looking at at least another 5% next year with inflation running high.

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119947130#Comment_119947130

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119946873#Comment_119946873

Take this to PM or drop it entirely.

RichardAnd

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119948666#Comment_119948666

Constantly rising wages is something that I worry about. We're already seeing very large rises in the public sector and a lot of the private sector. This simply adds up to more cash that chases a limited supply of goods. Ergo, more inflation.

DataDude

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119948803#Comment_119948803

Yup! And with the whole multiplier limit in bank lending - in normal circumstances it would directly feed through to borrowers being able to fire more money at the same limited number of houses.

Higher incomes AND higher lending limits you’d imagine would be disastrous for prices. But then the bank response to higher rates may more than offset that. Who knows!

The big one to watch will be the BPFI mortgage approval data. Volumes of mortgages are already starting to fall. Average loan values have also dipped since July. Any spike in January will interesting.

Average FTB mortgage approval amounts are up 20% since 2019!

Padre_Pio

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119948803#Comment_119948803

Wage stagnation is bad.

Rising wages is bad.

Solution is still to build more houses.

Bass Reeves

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119952035#Comment_119952035

I think a lot of people cannot understand the solution is to build more houses.

It's the same with the rental sector. The solution is to get more supply. That means encouraging people with houses that they are not renting to rent them. However present regulation's discourage that

handlemaster

https://youtu.be/a_M6VaBQ8Q0

very similar to Ireland.

Wanderer78

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119948803#Comment_119948803

...again, current inflationary pressures are primarily coming from the supply side, i.e. virtually nothing to do with the demand side, i.e. the money supply, the solution to this is resolving supply chain problems, including stabilizing energy markets. wage inflation has remained low in comparison to asset prices inflation, these have now decoupled, solution, reduce the rate of asset price inflation, and slowly increase wages!

RichardAnd

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119952422#Comment_119952422

It's both. Supply chains were disrupted by lockdowns, and the "solution" of printing more money added to inflation.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119952035#Comment_119952035

It takes time to build a house or an apartment block, and rising costs are making that more difficult. There's no one-bullet to the housing crisis. We need a discussion that considers building, immigration, social welfare, investment funds and all other aspects that have contributed to this mess. Sadly, this discussion was needed years ago, and it's seemingly not possible to have discourse anymore without people screaming at each other.

Wanderer78

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119952557#Comment_119952557

yes it is indeed both, but its primarily supply side based, theres actually as possibility of deflation if the supply chain issues didnt exist, some still stating, this is what could be on the cards post supply chain and energy market issues, hard to know though, again, cb mandate is for inflation, but clearly not this rate of inflation, and once again we ve learned, central banks are not the only cause of inflation, but a part of it....

your second point is very important though, yup its time to have adult conversations about these issues, in particular the whole process of financialisation of our property markets has collapsed.....

Jmc25

Current experience is it's a mixed bag out there. In the areas I'm looking in on the Northside if Dublin, I've seen a number of houses that have been sitting there for two or more months with no offers, despite price reductions. Generally these are in not great to poor condition or were listed too high in the first place.

On the other hand, have seen houses in ok to good condition, priced low/accurately go sale agreed at very high prices within a couple of weeks.

For the ones that aren't moving, I've heard a few agents say the vendor is "waiting for January" in the hope that the mortgage rules will kickstart things again. Interestingly though, BOI are already offering approval in principal at the higher LTI ratio so you would think we'd already be seeing some of this trickle into the market if it there was going to be a big bang in January.

Most interesting, and heartening from a buyer's perspective, some of the houses sitting for months with no offers were previously sale agreed at 20/30 over the asking they can't currently achieve.

And most disheartening from a buyer's perspective, some houses continue to go sale agreed at what are likely all-time record high prices.

Padre_Pio

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119952557#Comment_119952557

Nope, just need to build some great big apartment blocks in Dublin city. Build them to a high spec so you can't hear your upstairs neighbor clip clopping around in high heels, and implement management companies that keep tenants and owners in check.

Build a thousand apartments and sell them to people on the condition they're PPR for the first 3 years.

Donald Trump

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119947554#Comment_119947554

It's most certainly not a tangent. It is in response to your obsession about en-suites. You appear to think that if, instead of having 50 student apartments, we just built 10 semi-Ds and squashed 5 students into each, that it would solve the problem. I am trying (unsuccessfully it seems) to explain to you that it would actually be more efficient and profitable for everyone involved to build the 50 apartments.

As per development knowledge, it appears you only have the small-time amateur developer mentality. Developers building large blocks of accommodation aren't going into the bank, cap in hand, after each stage of the building process trying to get a few quid to do the next stage. The piecemeal amateur hour approach is one we need to get away from as it is a large part responsible for why the market here is so dysfunctional.

You appear to acknowledge that your grandparents had a great standard of living for their time (but by todays standards they probably most certainly would not). You have made some progress but I fear you may not have the capacity to extend that to understand the point I was making. Which is that you cannot compare a standard from 40 years ago absolutely with a standard today. In the same way that students are not necessarily pampered and lazy today because they won't accept the same standards that you imagine you persevered through 40 years ago, it is equally not legitimate to compare your standard of living today with your grandparents of 40 years ago.

In other posts you imply that your better standard of living today compared to your 20's is because "it was paid for" with your hard work. If you want to compare absolute levels and use your logic then your grandparents could have had central heating and a couple of TVs and a couple of foreign holidays a year. Well if only they weren't lazy and spending it all on avocados. You did it with your hard work. They didn't. Must have been just lazy like today's students.

cute geoge

Imo If people are waiting for prices to softening before buying they are going to miss the boat .There is a shortage of housing only getting bigger with every passing week due to an idodic government policy of open borders .Mary Lou grand plan to build 100000 social houses will barely cover the influx of refugees currently in the system .I don't know who is more idotic the government or Sinn Fein .They are hell bent on destrying the tourism industry and on top the greens wont stop until they close down the country ,some banana republic!!!

herbalplants

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119954431#Comment_119954431

Plenty of houses for sale at the moment. And refugees won't be buying them.

cute geoge

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119955394#Comment_119955394

My friend they are not that foolish but there will be people out there buying houses to make money housing refugees ,It is turning into a sucessfull cottage industry

herbalplants

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119955492#Comment_119955492

I agree mental money. Where is all this cash coming from for housing refugees, sure our tax. Yet not used for where it is needed.

dontmindme

All properties->28/11/22 to 04/12/22

All Dublin

31 Price changes

24 Decreases

07 Increases

Rest of Ireland

52 Price changes

37 Decreases

15 Increases

RichardAnd

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119953446#Comment_119953446

One thousand apartments would not solve the supply issues. It's estimated, I believe, that 50k units per year for the next ten years will be needed to meet demand, and I think that that figure was posited some time ago, so it may well be out of date. Assuming that it isn’t, that’s 500k units. Where will these units be built, and how will they be paid for? Is the manpower to build them available? Are the materials available?  I’m not trying to belittle you, but the often cited solution of building more houses is a very easy thing to say.

This problem needs to be resolved, and we no longer have the luxury of avoiding sensitive issues. As I see it, we are simply beyond the point of crisis and heading towards an outright disaster.  

RichardAnd

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119954431#Comment_119954431

One of the major issues here, as I see it, is that the elites have no skin in the game. Realistically, no one who is making decisions here (politicians AND civil servants) is struggling to pay rent, searching for a home or sharing a house with several other people. Indeed, how many of those in power actually profit from this situation either though private rentals, investments or though the provision of cheap labour supplied by mass immigration? The current disaster was created by the policies of these people, and now we seemingly expect them to resolve it. I don’t feel too confident about that, and they themselves don’t seem too interested in doing anything differently. It’s as if they don’t care, and based on their actions, they do not care.

Really, what we’re seeing here is the same as what is happening across Europe and the West in general, but should we really be surprised? What happens to those people in power who mess up? Many of the politicians who lead us into the 2008 crash are either still in power or are sitting on handsome pensions. The civil servants behind these people do not even have to face an election every five years.  Even personally, as someone who worked in the civil service for years, I witnessed shocking incompetence that was not punished. When there are no consequences for failure or malfeasance, should it come as strange that we are where we are?

DownByTheGarden

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119945790#Comment_119945790

Please explain how you think this is going to effect us ? Bet you cant.

DownByTheGarden

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119947855#Comment_119947855

Agreed. I think people are going reign in the spending big time once Christmas is done. Not even out of necessity, but out of an abundance of caution. This will no doubt have serious knock on effects to the economy. How it will all pan out I have no clue though. But I think there is a big contraction in spending coming soon.

DownByTheGarden

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119954431#Comment_119954431

I think everyone thinks that its free and easy to build houses in both cost and time. They seem to think "oh, we need 100,000 houses, just build them next year. All done". You need to get the money to build them. And you need time to build them. They dont appear magically once you decide you want to build them.

We are so far behind now and have put so much bureaucracy into housing, we will never ever catch up. So not only have they destroyed housing, as you rightly say the contagion is spreading now. The tourist sector is almost gone now. We will feel that in the summer. Next comes increased taxes to pay for all the damage they have done.

Donald Trump

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119958108#Comment_119958108

Wealthy people are trying to pull their money out of property investments.

As you may or may not be aware, many international funds also own property in Ireland

quokula

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119957932#Comment_119957932

This is nonsense. Politicians have a vested interest in being reelected and we live in a true democracy where the "elites" you describe aren't guaranteed anything. The vast majority of civil servants are on pay scales not particularly out of line with the private sector and have families and need homes just like everyone else.

The reason it's the same in pretty much every developed country on earth regardless of government type is that it's an incredibly difficult problem to solve, not some massive conspiracy by people pulling the strings, no matter how much populist opposition parties like to pretend otherwise. The only reliable way to reduce house prices is to crash the economy and that helps nobody. In the meantime you're dependent on increasing supply but there is only so much labour available, materials are hugely expensive, land in desirable areas is finite, and while everyone says we need more houses, the reality is that nimbyism is rife and most object to them actually being built in their area.

snotboogie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119957917#Comment_119957917

1,000 apartments wouldn't come close to solving the problem in Cork, never mind Dublin...

The fact that people are still talking about semi d's built in phases of 10 as a solution to the housing problem is unbelievable. It's not that these developments aren't needed but complaining about density requirements next to a train station in Mallow or Midleton is absurd, especially when there is 200 million being spent to upgrade the commuter rail in Cork right now. Id also be cautious on following developer input blindly, they spent decades complaining about the planning system and when the government took out local authorities with the SHD's it was roundly abused by Irish developers who used it as a vehicle for land speculation rather than building.

DownByTheGarden

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119958291#Comment_119958291

The only way out of this now is to build 10s of thousands of low quality housing in the middle of the country somewhere. Doing it the way they are now is increasing the costs and slowing the process. Build a Tallaght style development out on a greenfield site in the middle of nowhere with the promnise that the other facilities will come after people are housed. Of course they wont come because they never do, but at least there will be an amount of people housed that can make a difference.

We are where we are and cheapness and great speed is the only way to get anywhere near the amopunt of houses you need. But people will object. Noone wants that development besdie them. Noone wants to have to move that far from Dublin. Noone wants cheap houses. Noone wants everyone bunched together because of anti social issues. Noone want to move in anywhere without all the other facilities being there first.

In short its never going to happen, we will continue as we are, not playing catchup, but actually accelerating in falling further behind. There was a time when there was a way out of this, but I just dont see it now.

RichardAnd

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119958849#Comment_119958849

Wasn’t that the Celtic Tiger model? I remember renting a room in a house of that era in the Midlands a few years ago. At times I feared that slamming a door would cause the entire thing to collapse :D

That aside, I agree that it’s now too late for an easy solution. One thing that I fear is that as things worsen, the possibility of extremism’s (left and right) taking hold becomes real. When one has no hope, it’s easy to believe wild ideas, and there are plenty of left or right-wing lunatics eager to exploit that.

We live in interesting times…

DownByTheGarden

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119958972#Comment_119958972

Its probably worse. Its the 70s and 80s model. Either we can house a lot of people fast (will never be cheap, but not as expensive as the other option) and have a glimmer of a hope of ever catching up or we house few people slowly and expensively in good quality housing and never catch up.

I dont think there is a middle ground. To be hinest I dont even think the fsast way is anywhere near fast enough either at this point.