Softening house market?

I was shouting almost those exact words to anyone who’d listen back in 2020 when the world was ending with COVID.

It turned out to be the most expensive decision of my life.

Not saying you won’t be right this times around, but timing the property market is incredibly difficult and the movements often don’t seem to make much sense.

We offered 50 thousand over asking against another bidder who was ready to go with cash a few weeks ago.... Cash was king and our bid not taken. 50 is a lot to refuse.

But it gave us pause for thought, the taking fright has begun. I think we're content to watch for another year now.

A quick sale as less moving parts.

No having to listen to how the purchasers house sale fell through our how the bank won't lend them the extra money etc.

Interesting analysis released by myhome.ie. Coupled with the figures released by the bankers federation last week it would indicate a slowdown in the number of places that would otherwise have been sold.

https://www.irishtimes.com/business/2022/08/29/cost-of-living-crisis-makes-it-harder-to-afford-to-move-say-homebuyers/

We have indeed seen this movie. I can't see us faring as badly as China (though who knows what the CCP will ultimately do in stepping in to prop up the market).

"You cant blame people for hesitating in making the biggest purchase of their lives, theres a global slowdown, theres an energyy crisis, a war thats not abating, far too much uncertainty, you would want to be off your head in buying a house right now."

Unfortunately due to age, a baby and rents, we have to buy and in a place in an area that we don't want.

Where are you pulling that number out of?

Right. At the height of the previous recession, unemployment hit 15% and our current unemployment rate is at a 21 year low of 4.2%. So you're predicting it's going to be 15% - 20% within the next year?

Small coffee shops are going to be closing all over as so many WFH now. Meanwhile banks are screaming for staff. Good move to the bank as a job over a coffee shop and good for the economy. There are tons of jobs on offer that aren't retail while retail can't get staff at the moment. Just a changing job market.

There has to be more to the story than that. 10k for 2 months of electricity is bananas.

We will only know this in hindsight, but can you see the majority of small and medium businesses being able to stay afloat with the energy price increase and other areas hedging into higher inflation, the expectation that pay should rise to meet inflation and trying to turn a profit.? A lot of our SMEs were on life support through out Covid and with the Covid supports disappearing and an expectation for the company to get back to business and survive and get through the upcoming recession is crazy as their customer base is also been hit with inflation and energy price increases and this will mean less disposable income. Already our consumer confidence is at its lowest since Covid began. You say your happy to pay the elecy bill as it offsets the commute, yet there is talk of energy prices doubling from what is today not everyone will be able to afford it.

You may not mourn the coffee shop closing but if any of our MNCs decide Ireland's culture (ye know the fact you can no longer go out and have a coffee in that coffee shop your no longer mourning) and landscape is no longer suitable for their employees they may well tuck tail and run. 10 companies pay 55% of our corpo taxes in this country. If the MNCs start flaking Ireland Inc is goosed.

Usually in a recession no one can see when it starts exactly or when it finishes and its normally in hindsight, but the one coming this winter/Spring 2023 is the exception, due to the fact we are heading into winter which means we as either a person or a company use more energy and that is going to hit every other area within the economy with regards to how much discretionary spend we are left with.

The proliferation of coffee shops is a relatively recent phenomenon. There used to be a handful, next thing they started appearing everywhere. people having take-away coffee was unknown until a few years ago. Most offices had a kettle and a jar of instant coffee on a shelf. people managed without them before and will cope without them again.

You've made some big jumps from some small cafes closing to us having no where to eat or drink and the MNCs leaving the country!

So can you not see that less people buying these coffees is just the tipping point as your right there is no justification to get more but this is mainly due to financial pressures to be meet else where and the coffee shop will not be able to continue trading due to the costs outweighing the profits as people cut down or cut out coffee?. Now substitute in a Pint for coffee and rinse and repeat, then substitute in hair cuts and rinse and repeat and you can keep going with almost any service or product produced and/or sold by our small to medium businesses. The likelihood is very high as what most services or products have in common within their lifecycle from being a raw material to being a finished product to being shipped/transported to be sold and then sold is at some point in the life cycle there is a reliance on energy. We are at full employment now yet in Q1 2022 we had an increase of 8% in companies going into liquidation and that was while Covid supports where still in play. The winter is going to be horrible. So you think there is little information to go on. There is information and pointers to an upcoming global recession all over the place jesus christ, Ireland is experiencing really high inflation and interest rate increases making everything here more expensive and wages are not keeping up in a lot of sectors. So just as a simple exercise look at how well or poorly Germany, the UK and the US is doing, these 3 countries have more sway and influence with regards to Ireland's fortunes than the rest of the world put together and we are way to open an economy not to feel the pain that they are going through.