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

That's why I suggested somewhere like Drogheda & Balbriggan - mature schools & transport links, & demand has held up better over the years than it has in the midlands. But it will of course depend also where people are from and where they work or want to work.

I'm sure the ones who still have their 30+ year old kids living with them because they can't afford a house wouldn't mind seeing the value fall.

What people say and what people think are two very different things.

I dont believe for a second that 6 out of 10 homeowners would happily sign on the dotted line to write 130k off the value of their home...

Av House prices will never be 300k in Dublin. Short of an economic crash and mass migration episode, Its pointless to even contemplate.

Having just become a home owner strangely enough I if I ask myself my feelings have changed in the last few weeks.

Where before i would have been delighted with prices falling, I now have skin in the game and would be happy to for them to keep rising, maybe at least to keep in line with or maybe a bit more than inflation.

Of course if anyone asks me I will tell them that "oh, i think house prices are too expensive, its terrible, i think they should drop" just to save having any argument. Really its impossible for me to want my house value to drop.

Amazing how looking from the other side fence and having skin in the game effects your mindset.

Polls are a funny old thing in Ireland nowadays. Most people dont take them seriously at all anymore. Also most people now just give thye easiest answer when asked as people around them are too sensitive nowadays and its easier just to say what has the least chance of an argument. Then in the polling booth you can say what you really think.

The only time people have faith in a poll nowadays is if it confirms their own opinion. Then they think polls are great and 100% accurate.

In work the other day at lunch there was a conversation and it went the way most do nowadays.

People discussing house prices and rents. Then moving on to complaining that house prices are too high and they need to come down etc. I was sitting there agreeing, but in my mind thinking, jesus i dont want them to come down now. What a catastrophe that would be for both myself and the economy as a whole. Would I say it out loud? No. I asked a couple of close friends in that conversation later on who own their own homes did they think like me. Both said yes, but they wouldnt dare say it out loud.

Of course people will have different opinions. Noone is saying different. You read the post and projected your own opinion on to it.

Point im making is the same as the post above me. Dont put all your faith in a poll. You only have to look back a couple of weeks to see that. In fact when was the last time a poll got it right? I think its a distant memory at this stage.

Lets put it another way. Do you really believe that over 60% of homeowners would be happy with a fall in house prices? I dont.

Now you are reaching :)

Obviously you think polls are great. But lets get back to the question.

Do you believe that a poll saying over 60% of homeowners want house prices to drop?

I wonder what extent are these investors simply trying to get their money out of dollars and into hard assets?

Asset inflation of this kind could preface a currency crisis or some kind of failure of general confidence in the monetary system.

Most financially literate people realise that your PPR is not a financial asset. You realise no gain from it's increase in value if it's a market wide rise because you still need to have a house, so if you sell you need to buy again. Trading up or down you will not realise any benefit if scarcity pushes all prices up.

The only good time to have a house increase in value is if you increase the value of your own house, through your own actions (i.e. renovations). Increases due to market wide inflation are never good.

This is not the point at all though. You can argue the ins and outs of the benefits of property price decreases all day if you want, but the point was that a poll saying over 60% of homeowners want prices to decrease is a bogus poll.

The poll did not say "do you believe we need a financial crash" it said do you think house prices should decrease. It's entirely reasonable to suggest most people are in favour of this by massively increased supply.

Trading down is of little benefit when all houses both cheaper and more expensive have gone up in price due to scarcity of supply.

Also have to factor in the availability of options for downsizing - right now there are none, because of said scarcity, which is also the main reason prices are so high. Addressing scarcity will cause prices to fall and also availability to increase. Which is a win for everyone except those institutions treating their properties as assets who have to write off losses in value.