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

Merryn Sommerst web formerly of money week now with Bloomberg has done a series of podcasts with good advise for homehunters. It's UK focused but most points would apply here. I found the one on apartments quiet eye opening with significant implications for ireland inc with those long term leases FG foolishly signed up to

https://open.spotify.com/episode/7xE7IOS0403NLH0ADEpUyq?si=jIf05WGeSwy1az3jeyqIYw

https://open.spotify.com/episode/03MOqdOwuh59YzoSZwLJJS?si=EmfrSzZoRhSJbm4qDDEffA

https://open.spotify.com/episode/1fTnhlvDMroiSVXA8ylrkg?si=7yZJy2VoT6qjBo2aq7mFqQ

https://open.spotify.com/episode/3Dl4xyvL99J3gv77tc8gnu?si=j696ntp2TwGD3X2CgXcQFQ

https://open.spotify.com/episode/4WRzjdnD4C0oYUjmDuW2XN?si=59HmurpMRjmY0j7gXlQ3ag

https://open.spotify.com/episode/3fCHzhqz0HL30O1IMbV1i1?si=zKSzbUjeQ_KpA-IFNy7HeQ

https://open.spotify.com/episode/1fTnhlvDMroiSVXA8ylrkg?si=7yZJy2VoT6qjBo2aq7mFqQ

More headwind for gov revenue/fdi/employment

Property and rents are extremely expensive, but that does not nesecarilly mean they will drop in the short/medium term. Government policy continually increases price.

The risks associated with property increases, these risks feed through into the economy, jobs investment etc

Nobody can tell you and anybody claiming they can is wrong. What you can be told is the risk you are taking and possible outcome. If property price continue to rise you may not have enough income or mortgages available for you to buy at the higher prices for what you need. You may also simply age out of getting a mortgage if you wait too long as after 40 getting a 30 mortgage is harder so you may need a 25 year or 20 year mortgage depending on your current age and when you go to buy. Prices could drop while you wait and you get a cheaper mortgage but you still need a place to live so whatever costs are associated with that should be added to the cost of waiting and getting a property. So if rent is 2k a month and you wait 2 years that is 48k.

If you buy now with what you can afford and prices crash at sometime in the near future you could end up in negative equity where your property is worth less than your mortgage. This will tie you to that property and if you sell while prices are down you will lose money. If you continue to pay your mortgage you will eventually come out of negative equity whether prices increase or decrease. Now when the crash happened in 2000s a lot of people had negative equity but not the majority of those who bought but the people that bought in the last 0-4 years from the peak were. It only then effected those who had to sell but he people that held onto to them came out and were years along on their mortgage payments not having lost any money.

Now a lot of people as prices were rising said they would buy after the crash and clean up had a bit of an issue. The banks wouldn't lend mortgages so they couldn't buy along with many losing jobs so couldn't get mortgages either. The house prices were unstable so many didn't buy there were also a lot less properties for sale. Rents did drop so it was cheaper to wait then it would be now but it still had a cost many ignore. The thing is the combined wait before the peak and then the time waiting for prices to be stable could easily been a 8-10 wait. So at 30 if one person waited at 40 they get a 25 year mortgage with the cost of renting for 10 years but another person buying at 30 has 10 years paid off their mortgage and 20 years left if they went for a 30 year mortgage (cheaper than rent) or 15 if they went 25. So one person finished their mortgage at 55 and the other at 65. 10 years you can add money with favorable tax is a lot of money to add to a pension.

The last crash had many factors in play and is not an inevitability based on price. There are a lot more mortgage restrictions and a similar crash is highly unlikely even with Trump. Work from home has changed a lot in terms of price distribution. Prices could still crash but we are so massively under supplying housing as opposed to an over supply we had at the crash.

Basically it comes down to personal circumstances more so than the market. Just make sure you can pay the mortgage but even then it is hard to be made give up a private home if you are paying some of it back.

I don't agree prices crashed way before the job losses

I don't know where you are getting 350k going up to 600k in the last few years or why you are talking about 1mil housing.

https://www.thejournal.ie/investment-fund-belcamp-manor-dublin-6267289-Jan2024/

Might be a huge contributing factor in this one estate. It isn't the norm by any stretch. What you are really talking about here is 8 houses

To give an example, Glenheron is a housing estate in Greystones finished around 2017-2018. The houses fit into the help-to-buy scheme at the time. If you search "Glenheron" in Wicklow county on the PPR you can see the price jumps in the last few years in the region of 50% from €350-450k to €500-650k. The thing is; given the help-to-buy rules, these places that came on market around 2018-2020 can only be recently sold without having to pay back some of the tax rebate so the data is slow to pick-up.

6 Glenheron View - PPR 2018 €392k

6 Glenheron View - PPR 2024 €617k

This is just government fluff which has lead to such staggering, lightning quick price increases in the first-time buyer segment (sub-€500k) resulting in these houses getting an extra €50-100k in value (ca. 20-30%) that I could see disappearing in a reasonable outcome where the State belt needs to be tightened and, for instance, help-to-buy is not further extended to help FTBs also purchase these second hand homes or else councils and charities no longer have the financial resources to pay €3-4k pm rent for these places.

Oh I know that it is, doesn't mean it's not still madness. I used this example as the other poster was countering the idea that houses went from 350 to 600, and while not exactly the same increase, it's not as ridiculous as they were making out it out to be.

As per Awec you’ve forgotten VAT. But also

Back in 2017, these houses received government subsidies. In 2025 they no longer receive government subsidies…this should be deflationary…but the prices are still way up.

This makes the opposite point to the one you’re trying to make. It’s actually one I’ve made a few times on here…people wonder what would happen if the HTB was removed…we already know, look at north Wicklow where the HTB was effectively removed (due to the price limit not indexing) back in 2021…absolutely nothing. Prices kept (and continue to) fly up without any government supports at all.

I find it funny people just look at the the cost price of a house that has gone through the roof in the last 8 to 10 years but forget that all the inputs for building a house has also shot up in that time and in order for a builder to be profitable new house prices have to reflect this.

For example

Labour - there are lads who wont get up out of bed in the morning in the trade unless there is a huge amount dangled in front of them. (thats brickies, roofers, tilers, sparks, plumbers the lot are ridiculously high in costs here )

Land - Price gone up through the roof

Building materials - Also gone through the roof

This is before we get into what additional cost the likes of adding electricity connection, water and other utilities or the fact that most houses now have ridiculously high ratings and building reqs to adhere too which adds in cost.

Then of course you have inflation and the fact that prices nearly halved in the period from 2007 to 2012 so there was always going to be some kind of realignment along with that inflation.

Ultimately if our demand out weighs supply none of the above costs are coming down any time soon ergo our prices are not going anywhere while we are importing a huge population into the country year on year and trying to house every bleeding heart that looks for accommodation. Our government is effectively prioritizing both social housing and Vultures to take the majority of housing coming on stream and leaving anyone trying to do things the right way in this country as in working/saving and trying to get on the ladder in the dirt.

Google Ai generated response to

"Job losses and house price falls during Ireland's property crash 08"

• Overall Employment:Employment fell by 8.3% between 2007 and 2009, and unemployment rates rose significantly, reaching 11.4% in May 2009 and 14.3% by September 2011. The Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) estimated that unemployment could reach around 17%

.................

There was an over reliance on property sales related taxes in the noughties.

On the other hand podcast recently, Jim Power stated that corporation tax revenue exceeded income tax revenue over a 12 month period for the first time ever (caveat includes Apple judgement)

Think about that! The over reliance on one sector and using the proceeds to make everything more expensive, destroying competitiveness for other sectors

Property prices from 06 to 2012

2006 +14.9%

2007 +7.5%

2008 -6.9%

2009 -19.2%

2010 -13.5%

2011 -16.2%

2012 -13.8%

Source: Permanent TSB/ESRI house price index