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Stories from the Celtic Tiger Years Mod Warning in OP PLEASE READ

chops018

Does anyone have any good (or bad) stories from the Celtic Tiger years?

You always hear phrases about how people partied etc., was there just a constant flow of credit available to people and people actually taking the money e.g. was there actually teachers on circa €30k a year buying a house and car and an apartment somewhere.

I was in school and college during these years, graduated into the recession, so I didn't really see what was fully going on at the time bar the fact everyone was working and had money. My dad was working on the buildings on great money and my mam was working away also, we were never stuck really money-wise, also rent seemed to be a lot cheaper back then and fuel and also my college fees were only around €800 a year along with wages being fairly similar to what they are now (from what I can remember anyway, will stand corrected if I am wrong)

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2lazytogetup

inflation was rampant, everytime i went to the shops, the cost of everything was going up.

i think alot of the spending was because everyone else was spending. if the jones were buying a bulgarian property, why werent you. if they were going to new york for a shopping trip, you felt left out if you didnt do the same.

herd mentality. i think there is a deep psychological element to it. i feel jealous when i see them all going to electric picnic every year. and i know if i go, i would hate it.

Sheep_shear

double jobbing wrote: »

The few people who did spent half their lives booking Ryanair flights for their friends who didn't have them.

I had a friend who used to do this for me. I remember texting him once to get a flight somewhere, he replied I'd have to wait til the week after cos he'd exceeded his limit for that month as he has used his CC to pay a deposit on a flat in Bulgaria. He had never been there. And it was off the plans. I didn't think that too unusual at the time. Must have been after Summer 2006?

Sky King

Eddie Hobbs explaining what 'gearing' is to dumb dumbs.

You see, what you do is, see, you borrow €900k on top of your own life savings of €100k and buy a swish gaff for a million... the value of the place will grow by 10% in a year, then you sell it for €1.1M and pay back your loan. Hey presto! You have just doubled your hundred grand in a year!

I can see no risk to this strategy whatsoever.

Sheep_shear

Sky King wrote: »

Eddie Hobbs explaining what 'gearing' is to dumb dumbs.

You see, what you do is, see, you borrow €900k on top of your own life savings of €100k and buy a swish gaff for a million... the value of the place will grow by 10% in a year, then you sell it for €1.1M and pay back your loan. Hey presto! You have just doubled your hundred grand in a year!

I can see no risk to this strategy whatsoever.

I really wish his "What you should do with your SSIA" show on RTE was up on Player. Craic.

CrankyHaus

Sheep_shear wrote: »

I really wish his "What you should do with your SSIA" show on RTE was up on Player. Craic.

Look up the intro on YouTube - beyond parody rip off of the Transpotting intro, complete with Eddie doing a choose... monologue

thecretinhop

facehugger99 wrote: »

No idea what this means

a guy/buffer wanted to know where to get stripper at 1am with 500 in notes

Ger Roe

Anybody could be a property developer.... borrow against the house you had, buy another and 'flip it' as soon as you get the keys. It was easy... until it wasn't and the house of cards came tumbling down. I had a colleague who thought I was mad not to jump on the train ... he lost everything when the IMF famously flew in behind Brian Cowan's back, to take over the country.

I also remember a local middle aged couple who bought a holiday home in rural Spain during the rush to invest abroad. All was well, until the crash and there were no cheap direct flights out to the nearest airport anymore... it cost them a fortune to fly to an airport further away that they would then have to make their way from, to get to their 2nd home. They ended up selling it at a loss.

For a while, some Irish people thought we had made it to the top tier of world movers and shakers... in reality we were the subsistence inhabitants of a damp rock on the edge of Europe, who got lucky for a while and thought it was going to last forever.

Sheep Shagger

Sheep_shear wrote: »

I really wish his "What you should do with your SSIA" show on RTE was up on Player. Craic.

https://youtu.be/KHcHCcwr3Dg

[Deleted User]

"There was something wrong with me" for not at least going for 1 year to Australia.
You were a complete and utter philistine if you did'nt own an iPod mini/classic/etc (Right now I own an iPod Touch 7th Generation - the only iPod that's not regarded as End Of Life by Apple)
"OK, you bought Eircom shares. Stop looking sorry for yourself. Take that look off your face"

Fitz*

I was DJ'ing in a rural pub for some party, a 21st or 40th or the like, and at the end of the night the father of the family paid me €50 to play 3 more songs. They lasted about 6 or 7 minutes overall.

pgj2015

I know of a guy who paid 100 euro for a taxi trip that should have cost around 7. The taxi was booked but not after 100 euro being offered.

Ger Roe

Deleted User wrote: »

"There was something wrong with me" for not at least going for 1 year to Australia.

You were a complete and utter philistine if you did'nt own an iPod mini/classic/etc (Right now I own an iPod Touch 7th Generation - the only iPod that's not regarded as End Of Life by Apple)

"OK, you bought Eircom shares. Stop looking sorry for yourself. Take that look off your face"

Oh yeah... Eircom shares... that was another thing you could not loose on. Buy as many as you can, it's a sure fire winner..... they said...

Said about a company that had totally failed to deliver a proper network infrastructure or service for decades and that we all knew was top heavy with staff working on unsustainable wage deals while observing hopelessly inefficient and strongly union backed work practices. We all knew Eircom was a joke... and we were still persuaded to buy shares in a company that was already owned by the state.. IE ...us.

For many Irish people, that was our first and last dabble in the stock markets - it really helped to stress the fact that it was all a gamble and you needed to be checking every day to decide if you should stay in, or not - ordinary people were not aware or prepared to be engaged in that level of scrutiny. Even the regularly promoted advice declarations from Lord Shane of Ross, wasn't enough to protect us from an ultimate loss.

Sky King

Sky King wrote: »

Eddie Hobbs explaining what 'gearing' is to dumb dumbs.

You see, what you do is, see, you borrow €900k on top of your own life savings of €100k and buy a swish gaff for a million... the value of the place will grow by 10% in a year, then you sell it for €1.1M and pay back your loan. Hey presto! You have just doubled your hundred grand in a year!

I can see no risk to this strategy whatsoever.

Just in case anyone thought I was joking....

CrankyHaus

Ger Roe wrote: »

Oh yeah... Eircom shares... that was another thing you could not loose on. Buy as many as you can, it's a sure fire winner..... they said...

Said about a company that had totally failed to deliver a proper network infrastructure or service for decades and that we all knew was top heavy with staff working on unsustainable wage deals while observing hopelessly inefficient and strongly union backed work practices. We all knew Eircom was a joke... and we were still persuaded to buy shares in a company that was already owned by the state.. IE ...us.

For many Irish people, that was our first and last dabble in the stock markets - it really helped to stress the fact that it was all a gamble and you needed to be checking every day to decide if you should stay in, or not - ordinary people were not aware or prepared to be engaged in that level of scrutiny. Even the regularly promoted advice declarations from Lord Shane of Ross, wasn't enough to protect us from an ultimate loss.

The heavy rotation advertisements to buy in with everyone singing As Gaelige around the Ringsend Gas Works certainly enticed many. Presumably they were ultimately taxpayer funded? What a scam.

NIMAN

Sheep Shagger wrote: »

https://youtu.be/KHcHCcwr3Dg

Thats actually some of the best comedy I've seen on RTE recently.

kingtiger

CrankyHaus wrote: »

There was an Episode of MTV's Super Sweet 16, a celebration of retarded excess like that, set in Ireland during the period.

Most Episodes were in places like Bel-Air or Malibu. This one was in Dundalk.

I remember that twat, it's a pity I can't find the video so everyone could marvel at what a little knobend he was

Only thing I can find is this

https://yourock-ie.blogspot.com/2008/03/my-super-sweet-16irl.html?m=1

El_Duderino 09

CrankyHaus wrote: »

Look up the intro on YouTube - beyond parody rip off of the Transpotting intro, complete with Eddie doing a choose... monologue

https://youtu.be/KHcHCcwr3Dg
Oh my god it's a tabloid type show.

It's like the man said (sometimes attributed to Joe Kennedy about selling all his stock before the Wallstreet crach in the 30s "I knew it was time to sell when the shoe-shine boy was telling me what stocks to buy".

That's a show to sell shares to the shoe-shine boys.

NIMAN

Wonder where Eddie is now.

seanl77

I bought a house for 90k punts off the plans in 2000, I sold it for quarter of a million euro two years later without ever setting foot in it. Estate agent rang me with the offer, I had no intention of selling it until I heard the figures!
A neighbour built an absolute mansion beside the local golf club, and done the same selling for a 300 k profit, then proceeded to just build again down the road. I applied for a credit card which I just wanted to book flights, the bank sent me one with a 15 thousand limit. I worked in the betting industry then, during Galway race week I used to deposit cash hourly in the bank from the shop. We were so busy with goodwood during the day, that the tills would be full and the staff would have to throw the money on the ground to collect once the race started. You would be regularly tipped back then, often made serious cash if a fancied horse obliged. A lot of people look back at those days and cringe, I personally taught it was hilarious. Just enjoyed myself, but never went mad on property, holiday homes, bmws etc

antimatterx

Sky King wrote: »

Just in case anyone thought I was joking....

He was a special type of moron.

Odelay

The day the apprentice arrived into work in a Ferrari. That was the height of it for me.

road_high

You’d forget some of it, I was only starting in work and working in the public service was not close to the madness.
You really needed to be in construction, leisure, cars, property industries to be exposed to the sheer in sane stuff.
The likes of weddings and races seemed to be where all the vulgarity really came pouring out

El_Duderino 09

antimatterx wrote: »

He was a special type of moron.

I doubt it. He was selling to morons so he had to look like a moron too. It's rare that everyone has money to burn but the boom was one time when that happened. If everyone has money (including morons) then there will be someone ready to take their money.

[Deleted User]

It was such an unstable time, I don't think that many people were that content, although obviously it was much better than the recession. As well as the conspicious consumption there was a lot of instability around, plus huge amounts of booze being drank.

2lazytogetup

seanl77 wrote: »

I bought a house for 90k punts off the plans in 2000, I sold it for quarter of a million euro two years later without ever setting foot in it. Estate agent rang me with the offer, I had no intention of selling it until I heard the figures!

so where did you live? if an estate agent offered me a million for my house now, thats no good to me as it means ill have to spend a million to buy another one.

Ipso

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

I doubt it. He was selling to morons so he had to look like a moron too. It's rare that everyone has money to burn but the boom was one time when that happened. If everyone has money (including morons) then there will be someone ready to take their money.

Needles to say, he had the last laugh.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.irishtimes.com/business/financial-services/brendan-investments-wound-up-owing-more-than-11m-1.3165556%3fmode=amp

seanl77

2lazytogetup wrote: »

so where did you live? if an estate agent offered me a million for my house now, thats no good to me as it means ill have to spend a million to buy another one.

I just continued to rent, didn't affect me in that regard as I was young and single.
Bought a house in the same estate a decade later, I'm still here!

Ipso

2lazytogetup wrote: »

so where did you live? if an estate agent offered me a million for my house now, thats no good to me as it means ill have to spend a million to buy another one.

That was the thing that got to me to. Unless you’re trading down or moving to a cheaper area, selling your main residence for a profit doesn’t mean instant riches.
I worked in Dublin from 2003 to 2008, was never on crazy money and thought the whole thing was a bit dubious. I couldn’t understand how a country that hemorrhaged people via emigration for decades could all of a sudden think that they were The richest country in the world due to buying and selling poorly built houses to each other. It was like a bunch of teenagers found their parents credit cards. The inner snob didn’t take long to surface, either.

SEPT 23 1989

I witnessed a man snorting a line of hot tubs

completedit

All I remember was the feeling around the place, it was a toxic time to be a teenager. Great memories but snobbishness was a currency and it seemed like a really cut throat time that seeped down into our minds. Was a terrible environment to grow up in.