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

What ive noticed the last few years is that even if an older family member could be convinced to downsize, if something decent was available for them and there was enough money left over to actually be useful to them, they still dont want to go from 3 or 4 bedrooms to 1 or 2.

Because they now have children and grandchildren living far away from them and they want to have somewhere for them to stay when they come for a visit, because expecting them to pay 3 or 400 euro per night in a hotel for a family of 4 is a joke.

In fairness, its a big house on a big plot, looks well maintained, A rated 5 bed, 4 bath..lots of parking space, well finished....while I think prices for some things are crazy and you might well struggle to get the colour of that for it in a downturn ..... it does represent value for a certain buyer in the current market if you like the location etc

Especially when you see the kind of shiteholes making 750k in some places

5 more people join the game of musical chairs. One more chair is added. Things going to get interesting :)

I disagree on removing vat all that would happen is builders would rise house prices by 10%. In reality government has removed vat on new builds it called HTB. It paid directly to FTB

No point in removing vat if its going to developers margin, that why ways to prevent it should be explored.

FTB's are buying predominantly second hand homes so your 2nd point is not wholly correct. This is a measure of how distorted the new build market is

The refurbishment, HTB and shared equity are all kicking in, it time we need now to see the results

We have seen some of the results already. In your home County of Limerick we have the council paying 630k for 2 beds and 520k 1 bed for social and affordable. No private buyer would pay that

There were 5900 self build and one off homes built last year. It would appear that to afford a new home (historically this was the Ftb market) you need the site, ftb grant and possibly shared equity scheme also. This is not sustainable, government schemes have replaced jumbo mortgages of the celtic Tiger

Refurbishment grants are another high risk policy ast they pose a further risk of owners keeping property off the rental and purchase market to avail of the grant. You can't continually throw carrots at the market without effective sticks to prevent abuse

So here's my logic

• site value 300k
• cost to build 800k
• garage 50k
• landscaping, garden, groundworks etc 75k

New houses never come with land and need more money to 'finish' old houses cost the purchase price again to renovate to modern standards. I think there is a sweet spot of houses that are new enough to last about 30 to 40 years, have a lot of post build work and money put into them so once you buy your done.

Housing and cost of living the Number 1 priority..…Their own housing and cost of living

Despite the slightly increased supply in the last few weeks, all that pent up demand is sending bids crazy. Everything in Clare is going 20-25%+ over asking now. It would push you towards building but any value you are getting (And there is no guarantee there - depends who you know) is traded for the 2+ year timeframe.

Its extremely disheartening. Obviously the answer is to go for houses with lower asking prices so you can easily afford the 25% premium, but then you feel really shafted for what you get!

There's bidding on a house in Clare at the moment that has (so far) gone 35% over asking - and I think it will keep going a bit more. Pent up demand for sure (there's 5 active bidders), but part of the problem is the EA setting the "asking price" way too low. It was obvious from the get-go that it was only set to get as many people as possible to the open viewing (which worked), and that asking + 150k was the real starting point.

We're trying to move from a perfectly fine 4 bed semi-d to something a bit bigger with more space inside and out. We have what we thought was a very good budget. But there's clearly a good number of people out there with bigger ones. We're having to reset expectations.

You're right, it is extremely disheartening.

Data harvesting, everyone of those viewers is a weapon for the estate agent in driving up future sales

We went through that so many times. We then came up with a plan that as soon as a house we liked came on the market we went straight in 50k over asking with the thinking that it would scare everyone else away when they saw it jump 50k on day 1 and that the vendor would bite our hand off. And that, like all the other places we bid on, we would eventually end up there or higher if we bid in increments anyway, so why not just put our single bid in at the start.

Anyway it worked (we went a little over 50k over asking after a few phone calls) and it was sale agreed in less than a week and we have our house now. I think if we were bidding in smaller increments it would still be going and looking at a house across the road that went for 100k more that is exactly the same but with a smaller garden a couple of months later, i think we did the right thing and got lucky.

You make it sound like all grand parents are struggling. If they are happy and willing to live in their property like they have all their lives, then let them do what they like with the house they spent their lives buying and blood, sweat and tears making it a home.

So let the ones on limited incomes who cant afford it make their own decision on whether if they want to downsize. Any who have the means, well let them keep the fruit of their lifes labour, if they want, I say.

Mania phase, househunters have my full sympathys