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

If a property crash were to happen, it would be downstream from something else. For the prices to crash, there would need to be some sort of event that would quickly reduce demand. There are a few circumstances that could bring that about, but none of them are too likely at this point.

I'm not one to wish for a crash, but I will say that I were working my backside off to pay rent with no hope of buying, I'd be more than happen to take my chances in another 2008 scenario...

I remember it well. I started my career in 2010, and it was hard. Would I be lucky enough to keep my job? I don't know. However, I would take my chances of an uncertain future if I felt that there was no future here.

Again, I own a home so I'm just talking hypothetically

The last crash was a big part of the reason why so much housing stock around the world is now held by institutional investors. They had the capital to take advantage of fire sale prices in the aftermath and could borrow huge additional sums for basically nothing.

I’m not seeing how another crash like that will help anyone to own their own home. If you’re hoping for another one, it probably means you were still in school for the last one.

I think you’re following a common misconception that no young people can buy homes anymore and everyone is despairing.

2023 will set the new record for number of FTBers securing a home since records have been kept. By a country mile. Almost every single month this year broke that month’s record for most FTBers securing a home. The second best year ever recorded was 2022.

Theres a big backlog due to the lack of housing built in the downturn and we do need to ramp building up more. But by every metric, things are going in the right direction. We even have wages going up faster than house prices for the first time in forever.

Why would anyone want to go back to 2012 where far far far fewer people were able to buy homes, and far fewer homes were built creating much of the issues we now need to work through today.

Don’t fall into the fatalist trap that things are hopeless. More people than ever are getting on with it and buying their first home.

Anyone questioning the margins in building houses needs to look only at the prices paid by developers for land, either with zoning or with potential.

Google likely to layoff 30,000 employees post new AI innovation

The proposed restructuring is anticipated to primarily impact Google's ad sales department, where the company is exploring the benefits of leveraging AI for operational efficiency.

looks like big changes coming to many businesses in the next few years how will workers afford over priced houses with AI replacing jobs

The increasing age of FTBers is primarily due to the fact almost nobody was able to buy a home for about a decade from 2007-2014/15. The 40 year olds now who should have been buying 10 years ago had nothing to buy because there was no credit and no building.

We are seeing the delayed impact of that disastrous period now and are trying (struggling badly) to catch up for a lost decade.

For someone seeking more homeownership - yearning for a time of

• no new building

• no financing

• no transactions

during a time when all of those things are trending up (granted we need to touch further) literally makes no sense.

We are seeing the delayed consequences now and people want to go back to the cause of it all just ‘because’. It’s beyond stupid.

On point 2 - no, my observation is planning rules are being fairly rigorously enforced to prevent one off developments (much to some people’s annoyance) and building is now very heavily concentrated in high density, well connected locations.

Anyone concerned about the health of the Irish economy would recognise the importance of affordable housing with security of tenure (balanced of course with reasonable LL protection) in maintaining it.

In such an environment, the economy grows and landlord/Tennant income grows and state finances are in much better shape.

This will never happen with supply completely controlled by the private sector

"More people than ever are getting on with it and buying their first home."

This is completely statistically incorrect. The rise in FTBs overall has to do with a steep rise in the overall Irish population, per capita the home buying rates are falling precipitously. These figures are from four years ago, and the figures have only gotten much worse since then:

"Research by the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) found that the share of 25-34 year olds who own their own home more than halved between 2004 and 2019, falling from 60 per cent to just 27 per cent.

Lower home ownership rates would mean a higher proportion of households in the rental sector and “the continuation of rental payments into retirement”, the report says. Reductions in home ownership of this magnitude would also raise the proportion of older people (aged 65-plus) living in income poverty, from 14 per cent at present to as high as 31 per cent."[1]

The figures are very clear - FTBs are becoming much older, and much rarer.

A society where a large percentage of people are going to reach retirement without owning their own home is just financially non viable, its not possible to pay private sector rent on a pension. This is going to be an absolutely huge issue for the Irish state in 20-30 years.

The state either builds large scale housing now, or we're going to be building very large scale retirement housing then.

[1]https://www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/2022/07/06/falling-home-ownership-rates-will-leave-future-retirees-financially-exposed-study-finds/

My biggest fear tbh at the moment is getting a mortgage before i am too old to get a reasonable length mortgage and then end up renting when im retired.

When im retired i wont be able to afford rent. I wont get a house provided for me by the state. Or if i do i'll be on a waiting lit til 90 years of age.

Rents will be sky high because there will be no landlords left by then, even reits.