Off Topic Thread 5.0

swiwi_ · 18-05-2021 10:53AM

The off-topic thread just got heavy.

ersatz · 18-05-2021 11:43AM

errlloyd wrote: »

Random one. But does anyone remember much about Dublin in the 80s? I ask for a specific reason.

I'm at that age where all of my friends talk about mortgages and house prices. And of course the conversation always turns to "our parents got their 7 bed d4 mansion for free by collecting 5 coupons on their breakfast cereal" (or some other variation of that).

Usually then we talk about interest rates, and stuff. But generally we all go away from those conversations feeling a mixture of depression, self pity, and existential dread.

But I guess I'm beginning to think that the true thing being missed when we look back at the 80s is just that no wanted to live here. Immigration was non existent, emigration was sky high. The rugby wasn't great, the soccer was awful, curry chips was an ethnic culinary experimentation, it was illegal to be gay, a large amount of the island was a warzone, and films were genuinely getting censored by the church. And the weather sucks.

Laced between a few hyperboles there is an honest question. Should we (millennials) resent our parents generation for getting rich off property. Or should we respect them for being willing to set down roots, and invest in living in this hell hole?

The generational thing is a scam that succeeds in creating fake rationalizations for economic policies. In 1980's house prices were roughly 3 x incomes, that became 6 x incomes during Celtic Tiger years (probably higher now) and in Dublin couples would need to be saving half their joint salary to save for a 10% deposit. Without family money it's extremely difficult. In the 1980s it was very difficult to get a mortgage as banks had oligopolistic positions in the Irish market and could be extremely selective about who they lent to. BUT, people who did buy most often did so on one salary. This was also a period of very high taxation and very high unemployment. The relative cost of things were different, things that are regarded as cheap now (food, clothes, travel) were relatively expensive then, very few people flew and people who took holidays did so in Ireland, going to relatives or caravans, etc.

IN the intervening period financialisation of the economy and the rise of the FIRE economy has seen 'assets' such a real estate become more and more centers of profit in the economy. This has occurred throughout the western world in places where strict policies to control housing inflation has been absent (US/UK/Ireland), this is one aspect of what's become known as neoliberalism. This is not a natural phenomenon but the result of a basket of economic policies that have been popular now for decades. People who happened to buy houses in the past happen to have benefited from it, but its just blind luck that they bought at particular times in particular places, the underlying reasons for the asset inflation has nothing to do with them other than they also voted for the gob****es who oversaw the financial scam that underwrite it.

Looking at it as one generation v another is like people who happened to live downwind of Chernobyl blaming people who lived upwind for their cancers.

stephen_n · 18-05-2021 11:43AM

errlloyd wrote: »

Random one. But does anyone remember much about Dublin in the 80s? I ask for a specific reason.

I'm at that age where all of my friends talk about mortgages and house prices. And of course the conversation always turns to "our parents got their 7 bed d4 mansion for free by collecting 5 coupons on their breakfast cereal" (or some other variation of that).

Usually then we talk about interest rates, and stuff. But generally we all go away from those conversations feeling a mixture of depression, self pity, and existential dread.

But I guess I'm beginning to think that the true thing being missed when we look back at the 80s is just that no wanted to live here. Immigration was non existent, emigration was sky high. The rugby wasn't great, the soccer was awful, curry chips was an ethnic culinary experimentation, it was illegal to be gay, a large amount of the island was a warzone, and films were genuinely getting censored by the church. And the weather sucks.

Laced between a few hyperboles there is an honest question. Should we (millennials) resent our parents generation for getting rich off property. Or should we respect them for being willing to set down roots, and invest in living in this hell hole?

I suppose it’s all relative. You need to compare it to the wages people were earning and the supply v demand at the time. One thing I would note, in 1990 my parents were paying 17.5% interest on their mortgage. It would be inconceivable for anyone to manage repayments at that level now. All in all I would imagine that repayments relative to what people are earning has remained broadly the same. If anything people probably have more disposable income now than they did in the 80’s. My first foreign holiday was 1990, when I was working and could pay for it myself. All available funds my parents had went into the house.

Former Former Former · 18-05-2021 12:07PM

The problem is the fixation on one aspect of life in these comparisons, i.e. buying houses.

So even if it was easier to buy a nice house in a good area, there was a whole lot of other ****e in the 80s and even the early 90s that made Ireland a very grim place to be, e.g.
- massive unemployment
- massive emigration
- unimaginable rates of taxation on those who did have a job - 65% PAYE I think?
- interest rates and inflation that would melt down the global economy today
- the general overall state of the place

I laugh at millennials on twitter who think that people who came into the workforce and bought houses in the 70s and 80s "won the lottery" being the age they are. Did they f**k.

Edit: and of course the Troubles. And near-constant industrial unrest. And the fact that you couldn't divorce, it was a crime to be gay, abortions lol and you couldn't even buy a condom until 1985.

ersatz · 18-05-2021 01:05PM

Former Former Former wrote: »

The problem is the fixation on one aspect of life in these comparisons, i.e. buying houses.

So even if it was easier to buy a nice house in a good area, there was a whole lot of other ****e in the 80s and even the early 90s that made Ireland a very grim place to be, e.g.
- massive unemployment
- massive emigration
- unimaginable rates of taxation on those who did have a job - 65% PAYE I think?
- interest rates and inflation that would melt down the global economy today
- the general overall state of the place

I laugh at millennials on twitter who think that people who came into the workforce and bought houses in the 70s and 80s "won the lottery" being the age they are. Did they f**k.

Edit: and of course the Troubles. And near-constant industrial unrest. And the fact that you couldn't divorce, it was a crime to be gay, abortions lol and you couldn't even buy a condom until 1985.

And I don't believe my feet were dry for the first 20 years of my life. Irish living standards were very poor in the 1980s. I remember the cops coming in and removing condom machines we had put up in the jakes in the bar in college, I think it was 1987 or 1988. The kids have absolutely no idea.

errlloyd · 18-05-2021 01:11PM

Right ^^ kinda echoing what both of you are saying above.

Objectively property was cheaper in the 1980s. It was very cheap. I know my dad got hit by an interest rate hike that overnight meant his mortgage jumped to more than his entire take-home pay, but on the other hand he was still rocking a 20 year mortage for a single income family.

But there were **** all opportunities, the social situation wasn't great, a lot of the property was pretty crappy.

But from 81-94 there wasn't net immigration once in Irish history. House prices are influenced by the levers of fiscal policy - for sure. But the main driver is simple supply and demand. Is it fair to say there was way less demand because Dublin wasn't a very desirable place to live?

stephen_n · 18-05-2021 01:19PM

errlloyd wrote: »

Right ^^ kinda echoing what both of you are saying above.

Objectively property was cheaper in the 1980s. It was very cheap. I know my dad got hit by an interest rate hike that overnight meant his mortgage jumped to more than his entire take-home pay, but on the other hand he was still rocking a 20 year mortage for a single income family.

But there were **** all opportunities, the social situation wasn't great, a lot of the property was pretty crappy.

But from 81-94 there wasn't net immigration once in Irish history. House prices are influenced by the levers of fiscal policy - for sure. But the main driver is simple supply and demand. Is it fair to say there was way less demand because Dublin wasn't a very desirable place to live?

There was also a lot more supply. In terms of council houses. The decision to stop building council houses and sell off existing stocks. Had a huge impact on the housing market here. Where as massive council estates brought social issues. They also brought a lot of stability to the housing market. Which has helped drive prices up. The idea that market would provide, is a lie. It hasn’t here and it didn’t anywhere else.

ersatz · 18-05-2021 01:48PM

stephen_n wrote: »

There was also a lot more supply. In terms of council houses. The decision to stop building council houses and sell off existing stocks. Had a huge impact on the housing market here. Where as massive council estates brought social issues. They also brought a lot of stability to the housing market. Which has helped drive prices up. The idea that market would provide, is a lie. It hasn’t here and it didn’t anywhere else.

That and really basic sh1t like appropriate planning. In the late 90s DCC changed the rules about apartment sizes, usual poor mouth from developers that we can't afford to build under current rules. The city ended up building really inappropriate tiny 'shoe box' apartments instead of focussing on apartments that people could live in and raise families in, like every other city in Europe. For all the apartments in Dublin there are very few fit for families. Just one example of many where political decisions led to a housing market that's totally out of sync. We've been talking about taxing vacant buildings, houses and land banks since the 1980s, hasn't happened.

Squidgy Black · 18-05-2021 01:59PM

stephen_n wrote: »

There was also a lot more supply. In terms of council houses. The decision to stop building council houses and sell off existing stocks. Had a huge impact on the housing market here. Where as massive council estates brought social issues. They also brought a lot of stability to the housing market. Which has helped drive prices up. The idea that market would provide, is a lie. It hasn’t here and it didn’t anywhere else.

The decision to sell off such a large percentage of council housing and not replace it or have a plan in place to restore the housing stock over the time was just so short sighted.

Former Former Former · 18-05-2021 02:00PM

stephen_n wrote: »

There was also a lot more supply. In terms of council houses. The decision to stop building council houses and sell off existing stocks. Had a huge impact on the housing market here. Where as massive council estates brought social issues. They also brought a lot of stability to the housing market. Which has helped drive prices up. The idea that market would provide, is a lie. It hasn’t here and it didn’t anywhere else.

Well, yes and no.

It's only ten years since we had a massive oversupply of privately built houses. We thought we would never need so many and they'd have to be bulldozed and returned to agriculture. The market will always try to meet demand. The problem is ramping up that supply takes years. The Celtic Tiger construction boom also had the luxury of a basically endless supply of labour from the new EU countries. That is no longer the case.

From friends in the construction industry, there is a huge shortage of skilled labour and a huge shortage of raw materials, so simply saying "let's build 50,000 houses" isn't going to happen overnight, or even in the next 5 years.

Finally, the local authorities haven't built meaningful numbers of houses in 30 years. That means that any knowledge around how to do it has been lost, so even if they have the land and the money, your local council probably hasn't a breeze what to do next. That's why leasing ready-to-go houses from the private sector is so attractive; it's not cost-effective but it's low-risk and it's quick.

TLDR: be very suspicious of any politician, from whatever party, who says they can fix the housing issue in anything less than 10 years. They absolutely cannot.

ersatz · 18-05-2021 02:31PM

Former Former Former wrote: »

Well, yes and no.

It's only ten years since we had a massive oversupply of privately built houses. We thought we would never need so many and they'd have to be bulldozed and returned to agriculture. The market will always try to meet demand. The problem is ramping up that supply takes years. The Celtic Tiger construction boom also had the luxury of a basically endless supply of labour from the new EU countries. That is no longer the case.

From friends in the construction industry, there is a huge shortage of skilled labour and a huge shortage of raw materials, so simply saying "let's build 50,000 houses" isn't going to happen overnight, or even in the next 5 years.

Finally, the local authorities haven't built meaningful numbers of houses in 30 years. That means that any knowledge around how to do it has been lost, so even if they have the land and the money, your local council probably hasn't a breeze what to do next. That's why leasing ready-to-go houses from the private sector is so attractive; it's not cost-effective but it's low-risk and it's quick.

TLDR: be very suspicious of any politician, from whatever party, who says they can fix the housing issue in anything less than 10 years. They absolutely cannot.

Good point about public capacity to build. I know one Co Council architect and in house they are basically project managers at this point, they have the skills and capabilities to be involved in the planning and construction of libraries and theaters, or their renovation, but they have zero knowledge of house building. That capability has been completely run down over the last 30 years.

jacothelad · 18-05-2021 02:35PM

Former Former Former wrote: »

The problem is the fixation on one aspect of life in these comparisons, i.e. buying houses.

So even if it was easier to buy a nice house in a good area, there was a whole lot of other ****e in the 80s and even the early 90s that made Ireland a very grim place to be, e.g.
- massive unemployment
- massive emigration
- unimaginable rates of taxation on those who did have a job - 65% PAYE I think?
- interest rates and inflation that would melt down the global economy today
- the general overall state of the place

I laugh at millennials on twitter who think that people who came into the workforce and bought houses in the 70s and 80s "won the lottery" being the age they are. Did they f**k.

Edit: and of course the Troubles. And near-constant industrial unrest. And the fact that you couldn't divorce, it was a crime to be gay, abortions lol and you couldn't even buy a condom until 1985.

It was quite similar in N.I. In 1982(?) for one month our mortgage rate was 16.5%. We were both teaching at the time and paying the mortgage and associated insurance policies took a huge chunk of our income. That was the beginning of the housing lunacy too. We bought a 3 story doer upper town house beside Methodist College in '81 for £12,000. Sold it in '86 for £28,000. Today that house is valued at about £800,000 upwards given it's size and location on the Malone Road. It isn't all like that though. In 94 we bought an 18 room 'house' in Whitehead for £55,000 and it needed lots of work. e.g. it needed 46 windows replaced among other things. After a good deal odf work it was gorgeous and I loved it. When we put it on the market one viewer from London said that they had viewed houses like it in and around them there for £2,000,000 and upwards. We sold it for just over £300,000 which sounds like a little amount but the same house in Belfast would have been at least twice the price. Location, location.......blah blah. Feck knows what it would have fetched in Dublin. We now live in a 17th century fishing village on the Moray coast. There is a house 400m away on the market for £1.000,000. Go figure.

awec · 18-05-2021 04:38PM

Is that gaff on the Malone Road still a private residence jaco?

Wouldn't fancy living around methody at all, too many bloody students.

18-05-2021 04:48PM

46 windows?

jacothelad · 18-05-2021 05:30PM

Deleted User wrote: »

46 windows?

Yep. Most 6 feet tall and 3 feet wide sash windows. There were also four entrance doors and the front one was 4 feet wide and 7 feet in height which led to a vestibule with a similar sized interior door. It cost a small fortune to replace them. The front one had to be mahogany as it was a conservation area. The house at one time had been used as a small hotel, part of it was a cafe for a while, then a gents barbers and in the 1950s the rear walled garden that we made had actually been used as a chip shop.

Here is the front elevation which has 20 windows in all.

I really loved the house but it went through heating oil like a WW1 battleship..:D

Shaka Hislop · 18-05-2021 05:34PM

Sweet baby jesus!

swiwi_ · 18-05-2021 06:09PM

jacothelad wrote: »

Yep. Most 6 feet tall and 3 feet wide sash windows. There were also four entrance doors and the front one was 4 feet wide and 7 feet in height which led to a vestibule with a similar sized interior door. It cost a small fortune to replace them. The front one had to be mahogany as it was a conservation area. The house at one time had been used as a small hotel, part of it was a cafe for a while, then a gents barbers and in the 1950s the rear walled garden that we made had actually been used as a chip shop.

Here is the front elevation which has 20 windows in all.

I really loved the house but it went through heating oil like a WW1 battleship..:D

Is that a house or a castle?

18-05-2021 06:16PM

swiwi_ wrote: »

Is that a house or a castle?

Could easily get 24 co-living spaces in there

sydthebeat · 18-05-2021 06:18PM

jacothelad wrote: »

Yep. Most 6 feet tall and 3 feet wide sash windows. There were also four entrance doors and the front one was 4 feet wide and 7 feet in height which led to a vestibule with a similar sized interior door. It cost a small fortune to replace them. The front one had to be mahogany as it was a conservation area. The house at one time had been used as a small hotel, part of it was a cafe for a while, then a gents barbers and in the 1950s the rear walled garden that we made had actually been used as a chip shop.

Here is the front elevation which has 20 windows in all.

I really loved the house but it went through heating oil like a WW1 battleship..:D

My OCD hurts looking at that

stephen_n · 18-05-2021 06:40PM

Former Former Former wrote: »

Well, yes and no.

It's only ten years since we had a massive oversupply of privately built houses. We thought we would never need so many and they'd have to be bulldozed and returned to agriculture. The market will always try to meet demand. The problem is ramping up that supply takes years. The Celtic Tiger construction boom also had the luxury of a basically endless supply of labour from the new EU countries. That is no longer the case.

From friends in the construction industry, there is a huge shortage of skilled labour and a huge shortage of raw materials, so simply saying "let's build 50,000 houses" isn't going to happen overnight, or even in the next 5 years.

Finally, the local authorities haven't built meaningful numbers of houses in 30 years. That means that any knowledge around how to do it has been lost, so even if they have the land and the money, your local council probably hasn't a breeze what to do next. That's why leasing ready-to-go houses from the private sector is so attractive; it's not cost-effective but it's low-risk and it's quick.

TLDR: be very suspicious of any politician, from whatever party, who says they can fix the housing issue in anything less than 10 years. They absolutely cannot.

We never had a massive oversupply in Dublin or any of the main population centers. We had a massive oversupply of houses built in areas with no services, no public transport and no real demand. These were built because the banks were falling over themselves to fund anyone who called themselves a developer. Then backed that up with buy to let mortgages, to create a demand.

There are definitely no quick fixes to get out of this but there are steps that should have been taken long ago. Ending land banks for a start to drive down the price of land. If you were facing a 15% per year tax on the value of your land. You would either sell it or use it. Removing the tax incentives immediately for hotels and student accommodation would also have an immediate impact on the building industry.

It’s not just the loss of foreign building contractors. The bigger loss was losing nearly a generation of Irish workers across all the trades. Who left and most haven’t returned.

molloyjh · 18-05-2021 06:42PM

I know from talking to a lot of friends that many of our parents went through incredibly difficult times in their relationships because of things like rate increases. Some of the rows we'd hear were....memorable. My parents at one stage were paying over 18% on their mortgage. Sure, it was probably easier to get one. But paying for it and affording all the other basics was a constant struggle. Foreign holidays? Pure fantasy. We were lucky to get any kind of holiday at all unless we knew someone who had a house or a caravan that we could use for a week. The second hand clothes and toys from family in America was commonplace. Theres so many things that people today take for granted that were sources of major stress in the 80s. It nearly broke my parents. The 80s were a grim, grim time in Ireland.

jacothelad · 18-05-2021 08:30PM

swiwi_ wrote: »

Is that a house or a castle?

We lived in it from June 94 to Jan 2017. It was fantastic to have so much space. The ceilings on the first two floors were 12 feet high. For a Victorian structure it was light and airy. We could see Scotland, Isle of Man and when the atmospherics were right even the Wicklow hills to the south from the top two floors. I thought we were mad to leave it but it took a lot of maintenance and with 40+ stairs to vacuum it was hard work for our cleaning lady

As you can see. Buddy loved being on the various turns of the stairs for some reason. Dangerous at night when drunk.

mfceiling · 18-05-2021 09:25PM

molloyjh wrote: »

I know from talking to a lot of friends that many of our parents went through incredibly difficult times in their relationships because of things like rate increases. Some of the rows we'd hear were....memorable. My parents at one stage were paying over 18% on their mortgage. Sure, it was probably easier to get one. But paying for it and affording all the other basics was a constant struggle. Foreign holidays? Pure fantasy. We were lucky to get any kind of holiday at all unless we knew someone who had a house or a caravan that we could use for a week. The second hand clothes and toys from family in America was commonplace. Theres so many things that people today take for granted that were sources of major stress in the 80s. It nearly broke my parents. The 80s were a grim, grim time in Ireland.

Only had this conversation with the brother recently. We never went hungry and I can relate to passing down the clothes to the younger brothers.
The mother was (still is) a legendary budgeter!! We never seemed to be under pressure for anything be it going back to school or when Santa visited.

It's unimaginable to be paying 18% mortgage rates. I've a rental property up north on a tracker and it's something ridiculous like 0.8% or something mad like that!!

swiwi_ · 18-05-2021 09:55PM

Bit late to the party with the Mandalorian but it’s decent, especially the second season. Aspect ratio is a bit annoying, even if it does give a “cinematic” feel. Storm Troopers remain utterly useless.

molloyjh · 19-05-2021 01:54PM

mfceiling wrote: »

Only had this conversation with the brother recently. We never went hungry and I can relate to passing down the clothes to the younger brothers.
The mother was (still is) a legendary budgeter!! We never seemed to be under pressure for anything be it going back to school or when Santa visited.

It's unimaginable to be paying 18% mortgage rates. I've a rental property up north on a tracker and it's something ridiculous like 0.8% or something mad like that!!

Yeah, we never went hungry either. But birthdays and Christmas were def done on a tight budget. And while our parents made a real effort to ensure we didn't see the pressure they were under, we knew.

I have to admit to being lucky personally. I got on the property ladder here right before things went truly mental. We were in the process of trying to sell and move closer to home just as it all went to hell 12-13 yers ago. But then we got very fortunate with the house we're in now where we got it at exactly the right time between having just enough equity from the old house to just about afford the new one. A month one way or the other and we were goosed. We've had to scrimp and save at times but we've never had the pressures my parents have had. Even my sisters, who have struggled to get on the ladder recently haven't had those struggles. IT's just a completely different time.

awec · 19-05-2021 02:34PM

Got a phone call out of the blue from GP to get the vaccine tomorrow!

molloyjh · 19-05-2021 02:40PM

awec wrote: »

Got a phone call out of the blue from GP to get the vaccine tomorrow!

You lucky fecker! The number of people I know now who are vaccinated is really shooting up. I remain firmly optimistic on a return to the RDS by September.

pickarooney · 19-05-2021 03:11PM

molloyjh wrote: »

You lucky fecker! The number of people I know now who are vaccinated is really shooting up. I remain firmly optimistic on a return to the RDS by September.

They're luring people in with a vaccine and injecting them with heroin?

mfceiling · 19-05-2021 04:40PM

awec wrote: »

Got a phone call out of the blue from GP to get the vaccine tomorrow!

North or South?

ersatz · 19-05-2021 04:46PM

I'm due for a Moderna jab in Landsdowne Rd tomorrow.

Off Topic Thread 5.0

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