Ghost Estates in Ireland

Chairman Meow · 11-05-2010 02:01PM

gaz wac wrote: »

Its funny, nearly every second thread on Boards about this topic, recession, houses etc has people saying " its was obvious this was going to happen" or " everyone could see it comming" !!! who ? the best heads in the world didnt see this comming !!

Plenty of people said it was coming. you jsut didnt hear them over the voices of bulders, bankers, and the government shouting BUY! BUY! BUY!!It was obvious it was coming, as a market where prices continue to rise exponentionally is completely unsustainable. Its an undisputable fact.

Fighting Irish · 11-05-2010 02:15PM

Joey the lips wrote: »

Please dont tell me your stupid as well.... Jesus i thought the answer obvious....

Because you need a "home", it's my perfect house, i love the area, it's near a school

Pitiful excuses

Fighting Irish · 11-05-2010 02:16PM

thebaz wrote: »

another party that is to blame - is the media - they (RTE/Matt Cooper, SIndo, Irish Times etc.) are great now for blaming anyone , and potraying a sense of doom that Ireland is ****ed for 100 years - why did they not expose the bubble bursting in 2006 - I for a fact know that most people or anyone selling a house back in 2006 (second part) knew the market was collapsing - but the media were very slow to highlight this - now when its too late they are having a field day exposing the misery caused

So it's up to the media to give us the right advice, lol

Everyone is their own person

Banned Account · 11-05-2010 02:20PM

Meh, they should have kept their mouths shut, another 11 years and they could have claimed squatters rights over the whole estate - eejits i tells ya.

Hoofball · 11-05-2010 02:22PM

Chairman Meow wrote: »

Plenty of people said it was coming. you jsut didnt hear them over the voices of bulders, bankers, and the government shouting BUY! BUY! BUY!!It was obvious it was coming, as a market where prices continue to rise exponentionally is completely unsustainable. Its an undisputable fact.

One thing is that people were saying for quite a while the bubble would burst before it actually happened. All the person in the street saw was prices going up and up with no plateau/drop in sight. Of course there was going to be a drop but no-one knew when - these "experts" are full of crap when they point at statements that they knew a drop was coming two years before it happened....

Orange69 · 11-05-2010 02:24PM

Blitzkrieger wrote: »

There's a guy I know who did buy when prices were near their peak that I have great sympathy for. He bought off the plans at a good price, so he's not too far in negative equity, but he's a baby on the way and will be struggling to pay the bills for years to come. He knew it was a bad time to be buying a house, but he wasn't getting any younger and he needed a home where he could start a family.

Cmon, this kind of stupidity should not garner any sympathy. Buying off 'the plans' is moronic to the extreme, especially when dealing with Irish builders. Having a baby when struggling to pay bills is also moronic.

Did this guy not know about the concept of renting, especially when he knew it was a bad time to buy? I take no pleasure in people struggling with their ****tay houses but I have no sympathy either, the amount of people I ranted to and warned back when prices were crazy only to be told I was an paranoid idiot. They bought anyway..

Fighting Irish · 11-05-2010 02:32PM

It's not about seeing that the bubble was going to burst it's about paying prices that were ridiculous

take everything · 11-05-2010 02:33PM

Paranormal forum tbh.

Orange69 · 11-05-2010 02:37PM

Fighting Irish wrote: »

It's not about seeing that the bubble was going to burst it's about paying prices that were ridiculous

Exactly, how anyone, anywhere would agree with 30+ years of mortgage is something I could never understand..

Joey the lips · 11-05-2010 02:37PM

Fighting Irish wrote: »

Because you need a "home", it's my perfect house, i love the area, it's near a school

Pitiful excuses

How is it an excuse. A rational decision that its cheaper to buy than rent was made based on the market conditions and advice from various institutions....

I find your attitude laughable and am delighted to see that its in afterhours because I imagine thats the only domain where your attitude can inhabit...

If you were in the position of these people at the start i would love to have seen your choice...

afik i cant see many people tieing themselves into a 35 year mortage for a ride so I can only imagine they done it to make something of there life granted it was wrong...... what is your comparrision?

11-05-2010 02:47PM

gaz wac wrote: »

Its funny, nearly every second thread on Boards about this topic, recession, houses etc has people saying " its was obvious this was going to happen" or " everyone could see it comming" !!! who ? the best heads in the world didnt see this comming !!

so to say Pat, his wife and three kids are "fooking thicks and should have known better " for buying a home, is redic !! remember, all we saw was rising house prices, year after year, so why wouldnt they buy a house! Did they know there was a recession on the way?, did people know there was going to be 500k on the dole ? Maybe he should have come on Boards in 2006 and you's could have told him :rolleyes:

I feel really sorry, for both Pat or the bloke who bought an investment house, both are people who are probaly going to be out of their minds, worrying about money for the next 10 years. I dont think people realise, that this is going to start snowballing into other areas like mental health and belive me, if you ever had any dealings with the Irish health system, you would know what a disaster it is, so this is the last thing we need.

I just wish people would be less of the though of mind of " well fook you Pat, I rented "knowing " this was going to happen, I didnt ask you to sign that contract with the bank!! at least im ok " :mad:

rant over

For God's sake, I'm a young woman with little knowledge of economics and I could have told you it was going to happen. There was just no way house prices were going to keep rising and rising, something had to give. I looked at house prices and thought, 'that's bloody ridiculous, there's no way that house is really worth that,' not 'oooh I'd better buy now before it reaches a million euro.' I mean, did people REALLY think that a McMansion in Mullingar was going to increase in value year after year? Ireland just doesn't have the population to warrant all those new builds. It's not that I don't have sympathy for people now living on ghost estates as they weren't to know it would go SO wrong so fast, but if they hadn't an inkling something like this was going to happen, they had their heads buried in the sand.

Fighting Irish · 11-05-2010 02:56PM

Joey the lips wrote: »

How is it an excuse. A rational decision that its cheaper to buy than rent was made based on the market conditions and advice from various institutions....

I find your attitude laughable and am delighted to see that its in afterhours because I imagine thats the only domain where your attitude can inhabit...

If you were in the position of these people at the start i would love to have seen your choice...

afik i cant see many people tieing themselves into a 35 year mortage for a ride so I can only imagine they done it to make something of there life granted it was wrong...... what is your comparrision?

People didn't think for themselves

Joey the lips · 11-05-2010 03:04PM

Fighting Irish wrote: »

People didn't think for themselves

Touche... i will leave you with your post 86 your autobioghraphy. like i said i assume you done better and if so perhaps you would like to share the secret....

Nahh I did not think so....

Banned Account · 11-05-2010 03:13PM

It's an unfortunate situation, people did overpay for homes (though they did not all realise it at that time) but I doubt if the developers really intended to leave the estates vacant, they used the phase 1 money to build phase two etc, etc. When the units stopped selling, the cash ran out.

Rather then bicker and argue over who was right or wrong, it would be better to work out a solution - what about completing a few developments in each area and re-locating the unfortunates into these - then knock the remainder.

If you don't want to move, you can just shut up.

Hannibal Smith · 11-05-2010 03:25PM

First off I think legislation should be introduced which forbids a developer from moving on to any new development, without having the previous development completely finished and ready to be handed over to the Local Authority/Man Co.

That doesn't help the people left in these estates now...but surely there are construction companies that can take them over?

Actually, there's a company idea for out of work builders...get together and finish these estates!

Joey the lips · 11-05-2010 03:37PM

Fitzcaraldo wrote: »

It's an unfortunate situation, people did overpay for homes (though they did not all realise it at that time) but I doubt if the developers really intended to leave the estates vacant, they used the phase 1 money to build phase two etc, etc. When the units stopped selling, the cash ran out.

Rather then bicker and argue over who was right or wrong, it would be better to work out a solution - what about completing a few developments in each area and re-locating the unfortunates into these - then knock the remainder.

If you don't want to move, you can just shut up.

Thats not a bad idea....what about then moving homeless into the remainder and just charging them rent....

Hannibal Smith wrote: »

First off I think legislation should be introduced which forbids a developer from moving on to any new development, without having the previous development completely finished and ready to be handed over to the Local Authority/Man Co.

That doesn't help the people left in these estates now...but surely there are construction companies that can take them over?

Actually, there's a company idea for out of work builders...get together and finish these estates!

The council bond should be like a visa machine bond.... X percentage of sales should be held in reserve on top of the bond until a development is complete and then the council can use that money if the builder goes...

Even with the bond system in use now i dont imagine that is whats being done...

Hannibal Smith · 11-05-2010 03:55PM

I agree with you Joey, where these financial contributions have gone is a mystery. Surely they can be used to help fund the completion of the estates?

Can anyone remember any of the estates detailed in the programme?

_Kaiser_ · 11-05-2010 04:41PM

I had a very heated debate over this programme the other night.

My argument was that while I had a lot of sympathy for these people who now find themselves in houses they can't sell, surrounded by half-built shells in empty estates, and up to their necks in debt and negative equity, at the same time no-one FORCED these people to take on these houses. No-one dragged people in off the streets to sign mortgage applications for overpriced (and in many cases substandard) houses and apartments dotted all over the country.

The counter-argument was that the fault lay with the banks and the developers and these people (who have no hope of paying these debts) should just hand back the keys and feck off abroad somewhere.
I must admit that pissed me off as in effect it's saying "it's my mess but someone else can pay for it now that it hasn't worked out!"

Yes the banks and developers have a lot to answer for (and no, it's not right that they're now being bailed out at our expense), but at what point did we revert to being a nation of children (or maybe it's that we haven't grown up!) and do away with the concept of accepting personal responsibility for our actions, and the consequences of them?

A generation of people in this country got swept away by the promises of "free" money and credit and that the good times would last forever! Worse again, they allowed themselves to be convinced that if they reached the age of 30 and weren't on the "property ladder", that they'd somehow failed in life.

Part of this has to go back to the particularly Irish "need" to own property (probably a hangover from the days when the English landlords ran the show), but again, no-one FORCED these people into it, and the facts are that yes this "free" cash DID have to be repaid, and that there are no shortcuts in life - like our parents and grandparents, we as a nation have to realise that to get something you have to work and save for it!

Unfortunately this now means that we as a country will now be left to pay for the greed and stupidity of people who thought they could get rich quick, or take shortcuts in life for the next few decades - it's our children and their children who will probably still be cleaning up after this mess.

Of course, a better question is have we learned anything, because history has shown (from the Aftershock programme last night) that we just keep making the same mistakes over and over!

thebaz · 11-05-2010 05:22PM

Fighting Irish wrote: »

So it's up to the media to give us the right advice, lol

Everyone is their own person

in that case no one , and i mean no one should be helped - people took a gamble buying property if they win , they wont share the profits , if they lose they expect help -

hello932 · 11-05-2010 05:27PM

Without getting off topic why is this program not available on the rte player? I pay my tv license fee ffs!

Degsy · 11-05-2010 05:29PM

hello932 wrote: »

I pay my tv license fee ffs!

Sucker!:p

Highly Salami · 11-05-2010 05:43PM

Kaiser2000 wrote: »

Yes the banks and developers have a lot to answer for (and no, it's not right that they're now being bailed out at our expense), but at what point did we revert to being a nation of children (or maybe it's that we haven't grown up!) and do away with the concept of accepting personal responsibility for our actions, and the consequences of them?
/

I think this part of your post comes closest to what people have the problem with. The banks/developers etc. (who are in the business of money and should be responsible) are being bailed out by taxpayers money for taking foolish risks, while ordinary people, with ordinary jobs who just want to put a roof over their head and are not experts in property prices (nor should they need to be) are getting nothing.Lots of people bought property before, during and after the property boom and to call them irresponsible and childish is complete nonsense imho.

Mike 1972 · 11-05-2010 05:53PM

walshb wrote: »

Nobody predicted this would happen so definitively and strongly..

Au contraire

_Kaiser_ · 11-05-2010 06:19PM

Highly Salami wrote: »

I think this part of your post comes closest to what people have the problem with. The banks/developers etc. (who are in the business of money and should be responsible) are being bailed out by taxpayers money for taking foolish risks, while ordinary people, with ordinary jobs who just want to put a roof over their head and are not experts in property prices (nor should they need to be) are getting nothing.Lots of people bought property before, during and after the property boom and to call them irresponsible and childish is complete nonsense imho.

OK take my own situation then....

I'm in my 30's so have lived through both the good and bad times of the country.
Like many others, I had a secure well-paying job during the Celtic Tiger, and like many others I too got calls every few months from my bank asking if I wanted some of this "free" money (for a new car, or a holiday, or to do some redecorating, or for anything really).

The difference I suppose between me and a lot of these other people is that I had the ability/willpower to say no!
Given my employment/financial circumstances at the time (and I wasn't a millionaire by any standard - just an average 30-40k white collar worker), I've no doubts I could have applied for and gotten a mortgage, but I didn't, why?

Simply put, I don't NEED to own a house, nor do I subscribe to the theory that rent is "dead money". I've always said that I would only buy a house under the following 3 conditions:

- That it's in an area that I WANT to be, not just what I can afford.
What's the point in buying a house in the middle of nowhere away from all my friends and family just to be able to say "I own a house".

- That it's at a price that I can afford and consider good value.
Take that couple on the Malahide Road in the programme. I'm sorry, but there is no way that house was EVER actually worth almost half a million euro!!
It was on paper, but as been now proven, that price was completely artificial and had no bearing on reality.

- That it's close (enough) to where I'm working
What's the point in having your house, if you're too knackered to enjoy it because I'm spending 3/4 hours commuting to/from it?
Where's the quality of life in getting up at 5/6am to spend hours sitting in traffic, or not getting home till 7/8 at night?

This post isn't intended to say "look at me, aren't I great?!" What I'm saying is that I COULD have jumped on the bandwagon (and I am very prone to impulse buying at times!) but when you're about to take what is arguably the biggest financial risk of your life (and make no mistake, property IS a risk, not a guaranteed return), there's a lot more to consider than doing it because everyone else is, or because the estate agent tells me that the prices will only keep going up, so not only is now the time to buy, but I'll make a killing in a few years too!

That was NEVER going to be the case. We had a boom through luck (based on our geographical location to Europe and our native English-speaking population), and low corporation tax, but it was never going to last forever.

We aren't/weren't the "chosen people" and we aren't/weren't immune to the cyclic nature of economics.

Unfortunately this lesson has come with a harsh pricetag, but it is one we need to learn so that the mistakes made over the last 15 years can never happen again.

freighter · 11-05-2010 06:37PM

mail4liam wrote: »

Rte showed a program last night about these half built estates all over Ireland.

With the crash of the housing market, I watched in horror to see people all over Ireland in these so called ghost estates.

Half finished houses, no street lighting at night grass and weeds growing up through the cobble lock, it was scary to say the least. In one estate in Cork there were two people living in a half finished estate, one of the guy's produced his purchasing brochure saying, hurry there was only one house left, he purchased his 3 bed home for €280K.
These people have no one to turn to for help or guidance over these over priced houses in these ghost estates. Prime property's, over valued and people left to carry the can for paying well over the market value for bricks and mortar.

Some people said they'd be happy to walk away and suffer the loss but for the fact that they'd still owe the Bank's over €100K and more in some cases.

Did you watch this program? what are your thoughts? did you get caught up in this madness ?. Is it all going to end up in tears?

I didnt see it i used to watch most haunted on living i think they visited cork jail but mostly haunted estates in uk/usa

drakshug · 11-05-2010 07:21PM

I think if you were caught up in the boom, you couldn't see where it was going to but an outsider looking in could.
I moved here in 07 after selling up abroad. Stayed with mates in Firhouse. A house up the road, a semi, went for 500,000. I couldn't believe it. The quality of those houses were poor, it was a semi and it went for that amount. I just thought that people had money to burn or were completely thick but in reality the prices had gone so haywire that there were no cheap housing to be had.
Late 07 I remember saying to my wife's boss that the bubble had to burst and he pooh poohed me. There was a finite number of housebuyers and all this building........
Now, there is a whole street in our estate with wrecked houses. Everything has been nicked from inside and the developers still want 150 grand for a shell. Sheez.
I'm still renting. One half of me is thankful I've not got a huge mortgage. The other half of me is still waiting for the prices to come down to a decent price. When I was younger you could get a house for 3 x your salary + your partners salary on an average wage. That would get me one of those wrecked dumps in my estate. The prices have a long way to go til they are back to normal.

Fighting Irish · 11-05-2010 08:01PM

Highly Salami wrote: »

I think this part of your post comes closest to what people have the problem with. The banks/developers etc. (who are in the business of money and should be responsible) are being bailed out by taxpayers money for taking foolish risks, while ordinary people, with ordinary jobs who just want to put a roof over their head and are not experts in property prices (nor should they need to be) are getting nothing.Lots of people bought property before, during and after the property boom and to call them irresponsible and childish is complete nonsense imho.

no

BigEejit · 11-05-2010 08:21PM

I nearly bought a house in 2006 (in the uk though, not Ireland) but even though I had an approved mortgage I didnt sign on the dotted line because it was obvious that the boom was finished and the property bubble was just about to pop.

I literally had the papers in front of me.

I took a week to consider would I or wouldnt I ... close run thing it was but I just didnt think that the property would be worth 80% of what I was going to pay for it in a few years. As it happens the property was on the market for another 2 years and was never sold, it is currently being rented out.

Looking at prices from that area now, house prices dropped 15% .... the only thing holding up the prices is lack of supply. There were 120 - 140k approvals per month in 2006, dropping to 20k at the start of 2009 and around 50k now (going to drop again though back to 30-40k, there was a change in stamp duty and there was a rush to purchase before it happened). There are estate agents going out of business left and right, there are at least 2 or 3 times the amount of places doing rentals now.

I dont think the UK will have the problems that ireland has with regards to ghost estates, but things are going to get grim, tax increases and lots of government jobs will get cut are inevitable.....

starbelgrade · 11-05-2010 10:17PM

hello932 wrote: »

Without getting off topic why is this program not available on the rte player? I pay my tv license fee ffs!

It was a repeat of the same show that they showed a few months ago - they don't put up repeats on the RTE player.

Hannibal Smith · 11-05-2010 10:35PM

Kaiser2000 wrote: »

OK take my own situation then....

I'm in my 30's so have lived through both the good and bad times of the country.
Like many others, I had a secure well-paying job during the Celtic Tiger, and like many others I too got calls every few months from my bank asking if I wanted some of this "free" money (for a new car, or a holiday, or to do some redecorating, or for anything really).

The difference I suppose between me and a lot of these other people is that I had the ability/willpower to say no!
Given my employment/financial circumstances at the time (and I wasn't a millionaire by any standard - just an average 30-40k white collar worker), I've no doubts I could have applied for and gotten a mortgage, but I didn't, why?

Simply put, I don't NEED to own a house, nor do I subscribe to the theory that rent is "dead money". I've always said that I would only buy a house under the following 3 conditions:

- That it's in an area that I WANT to be, not just what I can afford.
What's the point in buying a house in the middle of nowhere away from all my friends and family just to be able to say "I own a house".

- That it's at a price that I can afford and consider good value.
Take that couple on the Malahide Road in the programme. I'm sorry, but there is no way that house was EVER actually worth almost half a million euro!!
It was on paper, but as been now proven, that price was completely artificial and had no bearing on reality.

- That it's close (enough) to where I'm working
What's the point in having your house, if you're too knackered to enjoy it because I'm spending 3/4 hours commuting to/from it?
Where's the quality of life in getting up at 5/6am to spend hours sitting in traffic, or not getting home till 7/8 at night?

This post isn't intended to say "look at me, aren't I great?!" What I'm saying is that I COULD have jumped on the bandwagon (and I am very prone to impulse buying at times!) but when you're about to take what is arguably the biggest financial risk of your life (and make no mistake, property IS a risk, not a guaranteed return), there's a lot more to consider than doing it because everyone else is, or because the estate agent tells me that the prices will only keep going up, so not only is now the time to buy, but I'll make a killing in a few years too!

That was NEVER going to be the case. We had a boom through luck (based on our geographical location to Europe and our native English-speaking population), and low corporation tax, but it was never going to last forever.

We aren't/weren't the "chosen people" and we aren't/weren't immune to the cyclic nature of economics.

Unfortunately this lesson has come with a harsh pricetag, but it is one we need to learn so that the mistakes made over the last 15 years can never happen again.

I think the point was that prices were soaring so rapidly that there was a panic that, buy now before it goes up again.

I have no sympathy for people who borrowed up to their necks to get the designer house with the 'feature walls' etc. Like you say people are responsible for signing their own mortgages. And yes you do have to have a bit of common sense...is a terraced house really worth half a mill?

But the ones who buy in new developments...they could never have known the developers wouldn't finish their estates. If a property goes in to negative equity that's hard enough as it is, but if the developer hasn't paid the ESB Bill to get the street lights and sewerage working, those people couldn't have anticipated that happening and shouldn't be left in the lurch now.

Ghost Estates in Ireland

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