Irish Property Market chat II - *read mod note post #1 before posting*

Pretty sure I heard that story last year buy it was a woman buying for the Chinese investment funds rather than a man like in your story.

In the last recession, Dunnes stores et Al continued to run their business so extremely unlikely that the majority of shop assistants would be let go.

We're a massively indebted country, restructuring our debts and levelling the playing field to a degree should mean many of the bottom 2/3 could afford to buy a house. And why shouldn't they? We've turned into an abhorrent country in the last 7 years and I don't know why.

And seeking to promote the common good, with due observance of Prudence, Justice and Charity, so that the dignity and freedom of the individual may be assured, true social order attained, the unity of our country restored, and concord established with other nations,

That's our Constitution. The current gang representing us have failed miserably to uphold the basic principles of our Constitution imho. We've had, what seemed, a demagogue here promoting a Darwinian society as it benefits that individual and their family. This is not what Ireland is meant to be.

Yeats postulated that some couldn't give a monkeys about anything further than their front door.

What need you, being come to sense, But fumble in a greasy till And add the halfpence to the pence And prayer to shivering prayer, until You have dried the marrow from the bone;

I thought it was ott nonsense but listening to some of the garbage spewed here of late......

We're not on the same page at all. I'm not a psychiatrist but as advice, maybe read the Brothers Karamazov to stimulate the parts of your mind that perhaps have not been exercised lately.

I've no wish to derail further this thread. Your point that change can be scary for some is taken

The rental bubble will pop as the big tech bubble has already popped and the fallout is starting already. This is a significant risk factor to our economic growth model in Ireland and unless we have something to replace the activity of these tech companies, we will see a big drop in the economy which will impact the rental market. How will it impact the rental market is from two main areas; the first is of course the workers themselves. As hiring freezes and job cuts materialise then demand for rentals takes a hit. The second area impacted is of course the Exchequer which receives corporate and other taxes from the activities of these big tech companies. This will trickle into a need to cut public spending which will particularly impact social or State sponsored housing with the (to be honest, criminal) waste of public money thrown at the rental market the last decade - dead money and people will be scratching their heads wondering where all our prosperity went when the whole thing collapses. Ukranian refugees and the like won't be paying the rents needed to live in this country so to equate bodies on the ground with demand for rentals is woefully inaccurate as a lot of the bodies on the ground (half of all tenancies in fact) are getting State support - that is not a sustainable state of affairs.

On the rate rises point, when the peak of the market was hit just before COVID, in 2018/19, that was four years ago already - a lot of those 3-5 year mortgages would be coming to an end of the fixed period and they will hopefully be fixing again because some analysts reckon the interest rate rise train has a few more stops to make. Wage rises are lagging inflation but the wage rises are starting to come through now which will feed into even more inflation in a few months and therefore more of a need to raise rates to cool the economy. I think the consensus is generally that 2023 will still see rate rises and 2024 will see rate cuts again and QE. That will be the "soft landing" engineering but it would still see a softening of house prices here as those not fixing their mortgages and those buying new properties will be hit with a few hundred euro extra interest rate payments per month, which of course with the rental market hit to demand, will soften the whole Irish property market.

I did not say I wanted to know what happened to shop assistants.

Does your anecdote show that the majority lose their jobs? To me it does not.

Interesting reading here -- Recession in the EU: its impact on retail trade 

It lists lots of the things you mention but does not list over 50% of people in retail losing their jobs.