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Stories from the Celtic Tiger Years *Mod Warning in OP PLEASE READ*

12357…23

Comments

  • #202
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 7,499 ✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    NIMAN wrote: »
    Wonder where Eddie is now.

    I used to see him doing Karate in Naas.
    I'd love to call him a cnut but I was raised better.
    He should ashamed of himself.


  • #203
    Trigger Happy
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,104 ✭✭✭Trigger Happy


    Keyzer wrote: »
    https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=89385832

    This...

    Some cabbage bought two apartments in Bulgaria (or somewhere in the neck of the woods) on his credit card because he seen it in a Fair City story line and thought it was no brainer.

    Sady for him, he had no brain to begin with - a no brainer for a no brainer... its like crossing the streams in Ghostbusters, you just don't do it...

    I remember that muppet. Complaining that the govenment were doing nothing for the likes of him.
    He wanted to retire to bulgaria at 40 and live off his rental income from properties he bought off his credit card (and a bulgarian mortgage). Pure greed and stupidity.


  • #204
    valoren
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,514 ✭✭✭valoren


    My cousin married her husband in 2001. He was/is a plumber by trade. They first moved into a 3 bed semi, had two kids and the boom started booming shortly after. He was the kind of guy who was incredibly eager to impress. Picture a balding squat man. A deep tan, a pink shirt, sunglasses resting on his forehead. He pumped the property market anytime we happened to meet at family occasions. He was a nice man but, in Cork terms, was tolerable in "small doses". He started making a fortune with the construction boom and was so busy that he took on my younger brother as an apprentice. He steadily started an expanding property portfolio but from talking to him it was clear he was highly leveraged using the one property as collateral for the next.

    A few weeks work on a site and he would have cash deposits for another gaff. At the height, he was a multi-millionaire on paper. He bought apartments in Spain and in the UK. They moved from their first home into a nearby 4 bed detached house, the kind of house where you set down roots for decades and raise a family. They lived there for about 18 months where he bought a nearby cottage on a large site to build his dream home. It was to be akin to a property in Spain. Large, sparse rooms painted white and with large windows and works of art everywhere. Minimalism all the way. The four of them moved into the tiny cottage while the construction took place on the site. It would be like something from Grand Designs. An architectural masterpiece, a property designed for the Spanish climate but in rainy, rural Cork. It was an incredibly stressful time for my cousin but she backed up her husband.

    The work went over budget and coincided and overlapped with the property market crashing in early 2007. The tide was going out and he'd been swimming naked. Plumbing Work continued apace but happened in parallel with him working practically full time to sell his litany of properties while continuing to pay the mortgages on properties which were in deep negative equity. The house was completed, the cottage was knocked. The property was gauchely named using a combination of their kids name. With the budget over runs he began chasing his tail in paying for the cost of construction. With the industry as it was, he was back to his day job i.e. plumbing repair instead of the lucrative installations. Workers were let go, he kept my brother on until after the Lehman's collapse. He was flirting with bankruptcy and eventually succumbed to it about six years ago. The property was put up for sale. It was initially asking for a million but over the course of a few years it dropped steadily. He, however, had a plan. They, my cousin and their now teenage kids, were all going to move to the UK. He would be out of bankruptcy faster. It was the last straw for my cousin. After years of stress and upheaval, she was not willing to move and unsettle her kids. It broke their marriage and they separated. The house, which was being sold explicitly to settle his debts, eventually sold for 800k about three years ago. She works part time, takes whatever work she can get to make ends meet. He moved to the UK to follow his plan. He even has a new partner. I haven't seen him for a while but I'm sure he still rests his shades on top of his head.   

    In contrast, her younger brother was a stone mason and played the boom perfectly. He made his hay while the sun shone. He left school at 15 to become a stone mason in 1992. He was single, lived with his widowed father in the family home which was bought decades earlier and then pretty much paid off. He traded in one car and bought a car on finance and drove it for years thereafter. He was lucky to "get in" early when he bought the house next door to the family home. A 3 bed semi for circa £120,000. This was in 1999 when house prices started their monthly acceleration. He didn't invest in any other property and rented out the house. As a stonemason he was always working and made a mint. When it all came crashing down, he was financially very well off. Losing his work in construction was ok with him. He pretty much retired early and takes odd jobs here and there to keep himself busy. I think he sold the house next door eventually and his return on investment must have been agreeable.


  • #205
    Sunny Disposition
    Registered Users Posts: 2,806 ✭✭✭Sunny Disposition


    Trigger Happy wrote: »
    I remember that muppet. Complaining that the govenment were doing nothing for the likes of him.
    He wanted to retire to bulgaria at 40 and live off his rental income from properties he bought off his credit card (and a bulgarian mortgage). Pure greed and stupidity.

    Total stupidity, but at the time people thought you were intelligent and enterprising if you were doing this kind of thing, and with no financial regulation guys like him were lambs to the slaughter. How much blame can you give him and how much is down to a society and culture that had gone quite mad quite fast?


  • #206
    Signore Fancy Pants
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,687 ✭✭✭Signore Fancy Pants


    I didnt seem to live it up during the CT years. I just remember everything being expensive as fcuk.

    Was living at home with the parents and taking home about €550 a week in the public sector. My friends were absolitely raking it in on building sites and as trades...of course I was a "fcuking eeijit" for not packing in my job and going to work with/for them.

    Man they were loaded, on the lash 5 times a week. One lad (a brickie) bought a H2 hummer and used to use it to shift bricks around, cost him a fortune but he had the funds to back it up.

    I dont remember being physically offered any credit cards, loans or a 100% mortgage, quite thankful of that.

    I think the most extravagant thing I can remember doing was ordering a bottle of some horrid champagne that cost €180 in Cocoon nightclub in Dublin. Didnt really have a choice as that was the "rounds" we were on! Only got 1 bottle and that was me broke.

    Then the boom came, the lads sufferred and I was a default pr1ck for having a PS job and being the cause of Irelands financial ruin :pac:

    In the next boom...Im going to go hatchet, not missing out again.


  • #207
    topper75
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,942 ✭✭✭topper75


    John_Rambo wrote: »
    I was working in advertising agencies throughout the Celtic Tiger. It was crazy. I was on good enough money, but not mad money. It was the credit that was the temptation. I had a house in the city and got lots of letters telling me I was pre-approved for big loans. Loans that could buy foreign property or a serious head turning car. The xmas parties were abroad in places like Barcelona, one of the agencies had a bar which was pretty unusual pre-google and twitter office time.

    I was a bit cautious and didn't get stuck in, but I saw lots of cocaine, prostitution, sports cars, Rolex's and overpriced Champaign. I 100% remember lock in nightclubs where anything went. Two people I worked with ended up in prison for cocaine charges, loads of them ended up being reluctant landlords and loads more bought houses for a fortune in areas they wouldn't step foot in five years previously, they're all still stuck with the properties, they all had regular jobs (not in construction). Others remortgaged their houses for amazing holidays, his & hers Audis and a wedding. My boss was on good money and had five or six houses. Affairs were rife amongst senior staff with company credit cards and expensive hotels. "Business" trips abroad were arranged at the drop of a hat.

    One memory was locking my (expensive) mountain bike outside work on a Monday morning when a limo pulled up and a colleague hopped out after an all nighter. There were two topless girls in the car. I'm not kidding.

    Company credit cards were a joke. I was out with a group for dinner after a sports event and a senior Bank worker paid for everyone on the card. There was about fifteen of us, none of us banked with him or were clients.

    Smaller things I noticed were people throwing €1 or €2 coins in to toll bridge baskets and not bothering to get change. Giving bouncers a sly 50 to get in. Executives giving 20's to juniors for a €12 lunch and not asking for change. Little things like not shopping around for car insurance etc...

    I remember dating a girl that was giving me hints for her birthday present. She wanted a MG TF! Way out of my budget, but her friends were dating estate agents and property professionals.

    I sold my house and the first estate agent arrived in a beautiful Lotus Elise. He told me not to bother putting it on the market and said he'd a cash buyer that would pay within the week. The house sold for 80k more than what he offered.

    I indulged in a new hot hatch. First and probably last new car.

    Put a Tamla Motown soundtrack to this and you have an Irish Goodfellas or Casino.

    "For as long as I can remember I always wanted to be working in an ad agency..."


  • #208
    Pauliedragon
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,980 ✭✭✭Pauliedragon


    I was working in pubs in oz during the boom years and the amount of people coming over on the one year visa who wouldn't work for about 6 months and just get on the piss 7 days a week was mad. When the recession hit I was trying to explain to my owner why the early week trade dropped off and he couldn't understand that Irish people weren't coming over just for fun they were arriving just for work not party.


  • #209
    elefant
    Registered Users Posts: 4,672 ✭✭✭elefant


    I was in primary and secondary school for almost all of the Celtic Tiger years. At that age I didn't have any real frame of reference for noticing things being in any way unusual. My family didn't have any earth shattering change in circumstances during that period, at least in any way that a kid would have noticed.

    The first proper realisation I had of there being a major shift in the country's mood and fortunes was when I returned home after my Erasmus year studying abroad 2009-2010. Obviously being away from the country meant I missed the gradual changes across that year, but Galway became a very noticeably less buoyant place in the span of that 10 months.

    I've always felt a bit sore about it, not being able to really enjoy those years of excess. But, on the other hand, I may easily have dodged a bullet by being too young to properly make a balls of things. The stories in here sound absolutely wild!


  • #210
    Skid X
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 21,444 ✭✭✭✭Skid X


    I remember being stuck in traffic in Dublin and being handed a flier to buy apartments on the site of Arsenal's old Highbury ground in London, from the man who usually sold the Evening Herald.

    Estate agents in London had realised that handing out fliers to random people in Dublin was a good way to shift overpriced property in London, even at the time I thought that was a sign there was trouble ahead.


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  • #211
    Muahahaha
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 19,688 ✭✭✭✭Muahahaha


    California Dreamer wrote: »
    50 hours will get you a PPL (H)

    There was a number of UK helicopter agencies that were selling the machines and the lessons at the same time and there was regular arguments between the sales team and the training team to get new buyers passed without much hassle.

    The Robinson R44 was the Toyota Corolla of helicopters and everyone had one as they are a simple machine to learn how to fly. I was really surprised that there was not more accidents.

    Yeah surprised we didnt have a fatal helicopter crash with the amount of them going about. We did have that local hotshot in Athlone who landed his helicopter on the roof of a shopping centre that obviously wasnt designed for the weight of a helicopter. Laughably he landed it there because he needed to get a spare set of keys cut for the helicopter
    A BUSINESSMAN who landed his helicopter on the roof of a multi-storey car park next to a busy shopping centre intends to "fully defend" his actions.

    Sean O'Brien (49) from The Island, Ballycumber, Co Offaly, took an unorthodox route to collect newly cut keys for his chopper by landing on the roof of the car park in Athlone town centre, Co Westmeath.

    The pilot, who was accompanied by his brother in the single-engine Hughes 369HS helicopter, appeared before a sitting of Athlone District Court yesterday. On July 7, 2007, Mr O'Brien landed his helicopter at the Parkrite Texas Centre in St Mary's Place, Athlone, contrary to Irish aviation rules.

    The Irish Aviation Authority (IAA) has summonsed him for operating a helicopter in a "negligent" or "reckless manner so as to endanger life or property in a manner that was hazardous to person and property". The IAA completed an Air Accident Investigation Report which found that the pilot showed "poor airmanship".

    It stated that Mr O'Brien had been getting keys cut for the door of his helicopter at the Texas Department Store. "He landed on the roof of the adjacent multi-storey car park. It is unclear to the investigation where the helicopter could have been safely force-landed in the event of an engine failure during landing or take-off."

    Air Accident Investigator Paddy Judge said the shopping centre, which was open for business at the time, should have been "completely avoided" for "obvious safety reasons".
    https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/pilot-to-defend-chopper-shopping-26482907.html

    He ended up getting convicted for that, six month suspended sentence and a 5,000 euro fine. In court it came out that he was a prison officer who went into running a security company and investing in property. By the time his case came up in 2009 he was pleading the poor mouth and said he had no means, had sold the helicopter and was claiming disability.


  • #212
    mikemac2
    Registered Users Posts: 2,972 ✭✭✭mikemac2


    Super Quinn sold designer water. €45 a bottle .

    https://www.google.lu/amp/s/amp.irishexaminer.com/ireland/consumers-splash-out-45-a-pop-on-designer-water-71091.html

    I remembered that story and I see now it was August 2008 so mere weeks before the finance world went pop.

    I think I remember a designer like John Rocha design a chopping board. It was a plain piece of wood tbh, not very impressive :/


  • #213
    JupiterKid
    Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators Posts: 12,891 Mod ✭✭✭✭JupiterKid


    At get-togethers and parties, people (including some acquaintances) bragging about their buy to let properties and investments in places like Bulgaria. I was a bit of a Cassandra at the time, explaining to them just why it was a credit-fueled property bubble not supported by economic fundamentals and would ultimately end in a huge crash and in tears. I must have seemed like a bit of a party pooper to some. Some of them listened to me, but most didn’t or didn’t want to.

    I did manage to persuade two good friends and a friend’s mother into not buying investment properties in Eastern Europe. During the crash, they thanked me.

    In the housing estate I was living in in South Dublin at that same time, many of the neighbours getting new cars and replacing them as often as possible - usually these cars were leased.

    Getting a letter from my bank telling me that I was pre-approved for a €75K loan for anything I wanted. It went straight into the bin.


  • #214
    John_Rambo
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,875 ✭✭✭John_Rambo


    Amazing how many people claim they knew exactly what was going to happen during the boom and predicted what was going to happen. Particularly on the internet.

    I come across them all the time now but never ever came across them during the boom.

    They must be worth a fortune now.


  • #215
    corner of hells
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,409 ✭✭✭corner of hells


    A taxi driving cousin of mine bought three apartments in Ireland and two in Poland, cause his Polish girlfriend wanted property in Poland.
    He has his late parents house in Crumlin as his home , all the apartments and the girlfriend are long gone.


  • #216
    Salvadoor
    Registered Users Posts: 278 ✭✭Salvadoor


    Colleague printing and signing his own exaggerated salary confirmation letters on company headed paper (Big 4 accountancy firm) so as to get a second mortgage for an apartment in the docklands.

    The bank took it at face value when even a cursory look at his current account would show that his monthly salary didn't match the salary as per the letter.


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  • #217
    El_Duderino 09
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 20,553 ✭✭✭✭El_Duderino 09


    John_Rambo wrote: »
    Amazing how many people claim they knew exactly what was going to happen during the boom and predicted what was going to happen. Particularly on the internet.

    I come across them all the time now but never ever came across them during the boom.

    They must be worth a fortune now.

    Absolutely. And economists who said as much at the time were branded gobshytes. David McWilliams' name is still spoken with derision even though he was ultimately, broadly correct.

    People didn't want to hear it back then and though he was an eegit and when he was found to be correct he was seen as a smug know-it-all.

    That's just how people work.


  • #218
    JupiterKid
    Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators Posts: 12,891 Mod ✭✭✭✭JupiterKid


    John_Rambo wrote: »
    Amazing how many people claim they knew exactly what was going to happen during the boom and predicted what was going to happen. Particularly on the internet.

    I come across them all the time now but never ever came across them during the boom.

    They must be worth a fortune now.


    That may well be, but there were actually quite a few people out there - economists and sociologists in particular, who did see a major crash coming in the heady years of the property/credit bubble (Morgan Kelly and David McWilliams for example) as they had analyzed previous property/asset price bubbles such as the UK and Japan property bubbles in the late 1980s.

    There was an entire forum on the web at the time called The Property Pin. I was a regular visitor of that forum, and there were many very good posters there who called the bubble fro what it was.

    The ESRI warned repeatedly of a property and construction sector bubble between 2003 and 2006, as did the OECD, the European Central Bank and the IMF. Plenty of people, myself included, did warn people of the madness and folly of it all but most chose not to listen.

    What did Bertie Ahern tell naysayers at the time to do? Oh yes, go kill themselves... :rolleyes:


  • #219
    completedit
    Registered Users Posts: 2,639 ✭✭✭completedit


    Yeah, it wouldn't take much to see that a crash was coming. Anyone who can see the big picture would have been able to see the wood from the trees. The crash was not just an Irish phenomenon, it was based off asymmetries in the Eurozone which economists in America had warned about in the 80's. It's more surprising to me that people didn't think it would all end in tears. Although didn't Ben Bernake say that we were in a period of perpetual economic growth and that recessions were a thing of the past so I suppose there was a collective head in the sand view on things too.


  • #220
    Muahahaha
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 19,688 ✭✭✭✭Muahahaha


    mikemac2 wrote: »
    Super Quinn sold designer water. €45 a bottle .

    /

    And Fergal Quinn himself sold his entire supermarket chain at the top of the market for 420 million, it was fantastic timing on his behalf. But then he handed over most of that sum to his children who promptly blew it on property anyway and lost big time in the crash.
    corner of hells wrote: »
    A taxi driving cousin of mine bought three apartments in Ireland and two in Poland, cause his Polish girlfriend wanted property in Poland.
    He has his late parents house in Crumlin as his home , all the apartments and the girlfriend are long gone.

    That reminds me of a taxi home circa 2006. When we got there the African driver turned around and handed me a Re-Max business card and said he was also an estate agent and if I ever wanted to buy a property give him a shout, now is a great time to buy, he gave me the full sales pitch. That was a bit of a shoe shine boy moment, as the parable goes when the shoe shine boy is giving you stock tips then you know a crash is on the way


  • #221
    seamie78
    Registered Users Posts: 900 ✭✭✭seamie78


    Dr. Kenneth Noisewater wrote: »
    Did the LC in 2003, did a couple of years in college, then worked in Centra for 2006 and so was on just over minimum wage for a year when most of my friends were coining it on building sites. Like a few previous posters, for those lads it was all weekends away, nice cars, out for pints and falling out of nightclubs 4 nights a week. I got a job in the Civil Service at the start of '07 and while it was a bit of a pay rise which I was delighted with (we're talking maybe 40 euro a week here), most of them would have laughed at what I was earning. It was literally a fraction.

    2 or 3 years later and they're all saying what a lucky so and so I am in my big, permanent job.

    swap centra for spar and you described my situation to a tee


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  • #222
    2lazytogetup
    Registered Users Posts: 844 ✭✭✭2lazytogetup


    John_Rambo wrote: »
    Amazing how many people claim they knew exactly what was going to happen during the boom and predicted what was going to happen. Particularly on the internet.

    I come across them all the time now but never ever came across them during the boom.

    They must be worth a fortune now.

    ah i think people knew the crash was going to come. we knew this soft landing was never going to happen. i remember a few months before the crash AIB sold and leased back their premises in Ballsbridge. they knew. i was going to buy in 2007 but held off. if the boom kept going prices would have kept going up and id be losing out by not buying. but we knew the crash was coming, maybe not as bad. a property crash happend in the uk in the 80s or 90s. so wasnt unheard of.


  • #223
    thesimpsons
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,694 ✭✭✭thesimpsons


    When banks are throwing round money, giving 90% then 100% and even 110% mortgages, you just know things have to come crashing down.


  • #224
    Feisar
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,700 ✭✭✭Feisar


    2lazytogetup wrote: »
    ah i think people knew the crash was going to come. we knew this soft landing was never going to happen. i remember a few months before the crash AIB sold and leased back their premises in Ballsbridge. they knew. i was going to buy in 2007 but held off. if the boom kept going prices would have kept going up and id be losing out by not buying. but we knew the crash was coming, maybe not as bad. a property crash happend in the uk in the 80s or 90s. so wasnt unheard of.

    D'ya remember that "soft landing" chat!

    First they came for the socialists...



  • #225
    Muscles Schultz
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 302 ✭✭Muscles Schultz


    Trigger Happy wrote: »
    I remember that muppet. Complaining that the govenment were doing nothing for the likes of him.
    He wanted to retire to bulgaria at 40 and live off his rental income from properties he bought off his credit card (and a bulgarian mortgage). Pure greed and stupidity.


    https://www.google.ie/amp/s/www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/from-buying-flats-in-bulgaria-on-a-credit-card-to-bankruptcy-1.1718389%3fmode=amp


  • #226
    valoren
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,514 ✭✭✭valoren


    One Late Late Show I remember was circa March/April 2007 with Pat Kenny interviewing Englishman, Mark Shipman. He was on the show plugging a book he wrote about Commodity trading, how it was undergoing an uptrend/bubble and if you buy his book you can see how you can profit by spread betting. His story was that he'd been involved with bond trading in the 80's, made great money as a fund manager and “retired” at 33. He spent his early retirement looking to start investing in "buy to let" in the UK. He was very much a trend follower investor and au fait with the bubble/bust nature of various markets. It was about 1994 and he was eager to invest in property but the banks, engaging in financial prudence, wouldn't lend him as much as he would have liked. The UK had just come out of recession and property was too risky. Think flats in Notting Hill asking £100k kind of thing. Through the 90's he accrued a property portfolio of flats he let out. He became a millionaire and private investor. Kenny then asked him how many houses did he currently own. He was a multi-millionaire so obviously he had a significant property portfolio as well? He replied, to Kenny's and the audiences surprise, that he actually only had one property. The home he and his family lived in. Kenny, with a mix of shock and gentle scorn pressed him as to why that was. To the nervous amusement of the audience, he said he'd sold all his property at a significant return over the past few years. He said the trigger, the "signal" that it was time to exit the trend was twofold. It was his Postman telling him about his own portfolio and bragging about how much it was worth and those very same banks who refused to lend to him in the mid-90's when property was dirt cheap were practically hounding him to “invest” with them. He said he immediately went about selling up as the market had become a bubble. It was merely a segment in an otherwise forgettable Late Late but there was a palpable sense of unease in the audience. Is he right? What about the Irish property market?

    The idea of a multi-millionaire, who knew what he was talking about, who'd put his money where his mouth was advocating that UK property was in "sell/chips off the table" mode must have made anyone watching who was heavily invested in property a little nervous. Turned out to be a shrewd move on his behalf to sell up as the Northern Rock debacle happened the following September.


  • #227
    Muahahaha
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 19,688 ✭✭✭✭Muahahaha


    I remember that Mark Shipman interview and there was audible gasps in the audience when he said he had sold all his property because he felt the market was going to crash. At the time it was one of the rare moments on TV that someone went against the prevailing narrative, in the same year we had Eddie Hobbs on the Late Late telling us that Cape Verde was the new hotspot for property. In the crash Cape Verde was one of the first routes that the airlines cut flights to so Eddie and his chums ended up with lots of holiday homes on islands off the coast of Senegal but they couldnt get a direct flight from Ireland to even go to them.


  • #228
    Lewis_Benson
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,148 ✭✭✭Lewis_Benson


    clintondaly wrote: »
    I found out what a Tracker Mortgage was and I still have it :D

    Me too


  • #229
    dotsman
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,636 ✭✭✭dotsman


    2lazytogetup wrote: »
    we knew this soft landing was never going to happen. i remember a few months before the crash AIB sold and leased back their premises in Ballsbridge. they knew.

    Actually, it was the complete opposite. AIB sold bankcentre, in 2 tranches (new bankcentre buildings as they were being built and, later, the old bankcentre buildings, for a total of circa 700 million. Not because they "saw it coming", but they wanted to raise capital to lend out. That 700 million they raised allowed them to lend out billions in extra loans in 07/08 and is one of the reasons why, despite not really competing for most of the boom years, they still ended up with a massive hangover. Basically, after being very conservative and losing market share, they went hell for leather between mid '06 and mid '08 and lost it all. They most definitely did not see it coming.


  • #230
    CrankyHaus
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,281 ✭✭✭CrankyHaus


    dotsman wrote: »
    Actually, it was the complete opposite. AIB sold bankcentre, in 2 tranches (new bankcentre buildings as they were being built and, later, the old bankcentre buildings, for a total of circa 700 million. Not because they "saw it coming", but they wanted to raise capital to lend out. That 700 million they raised allowed them to lend out billions in extra loans in 07/08 and is one of the reasons why, despite not really competing for most of the boom years, they still ended up with a massive hangover. Basically, after being very conservative and losing market share, they went hell for leather between mid '06 and mid '08 and lost it all. They most definitely did not see it coming.

    I think there was a point where the rational predictions were consistently proven wrong for so long that everyone scrambled in for the money. Of course the rational predictions weren't wrong, they just weren't proven right yet.

    The film and book The Big Short have a similar moment around 2007 where the market goes up in response to clear signs that it should be going down.


  • #231
    Ipso
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,995 ✭✭✭Ipso


    JupiterKid wrote: »
    That may well be, but there were actually quite a few people out there - economists and sociologists in particular, who did see a major crash coming in the heady years of the property/credit bubble (Morgan Kelly and David McWilliams for example) as they had analyzed previous property/asset price bubbles such as the UK and Japan property bubbles in the late 1980s.

    There was an entire forum on the web at the time called The Property Pin. I was a regular visitor of that forum, and there were many very good posters there who called the bubble fro what it was.

    The ESRI warned repeatedly of a property and construction sector bubble between 2003 and 2006, as did the OECD, the European Central Bank and the IMF. Plenty of people, myself included, did warn people of the madness and folly of it all but most chose not to listen.

    What did Bertie Ahern tell naysayers at the time to do? Oh yes, go kill themselves... :rolleyes:

    Don’t forget that people actually bought into the idea that Ireland was the richest country in the world. Mass delusion, all fur coat and no knickers.


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  • #232
    PTH2009
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 38,898 ✭✭✭✭PTH2009


    Plenty of marriages and families torn apart by money and randy business people


  • #233
    JimmyVik
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,367 ✭✭✭JimmyVik


    I was very young and I worked in IT contracting for a particularly flamboyant company and they brought us all to an eastern european country for the weekend - more than once.
    They hired hookers at a lap dancing club and expensed it to the company.
    Even the two girls on our team were doing lines off lapdancers arses.
    Then on the flight home we were handed our bonus cheques, which were 5 figures.
    Even threw in gift vouchers for the wives at home too.

    On another similar trip they hired a yought. Huge thing, for 10 of us, plus invited guests and hookers and coke too.

    Free drink every Friday night for us all in the local pub too.

    Those were the days. Needless to say the company went belly up in the dot com bust.
    Never seen the like since. But a lot of my friends worked for companies at that time that did the same kind of stuff.
    Some were lucky to get into some that ipo'd and made a fortune. One guy I know was with 3 different companies one after the other that went public that each paid him over 30K bonus when they did.


  • #234
    JimmyVik
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,367 ✭✭✭JimmyVik


    mikemac2 wrote: »
    Super Quinn sold designer water. €45 a bottle .

    https://www.google.lu/amp/s/amp.irishexaminer.com/ireland/consumers-splash-out-45-a-pop-on-designer-water-71091.html

    I remembered that story and I see now it was August 2008 so mere weeks before the finance world went pop.

    I think I remember a designer like John Rocha design a chopping board. It was a plain piece of wood tbh, not very impressive :/




    BTs sold oxygen bottles.


  • #235
    thomasdylan
    Closed Accounts Posts: 514 ✭✭✭thomasdylan


    I was in secondary school and at the start of college during most of it. Worked on sites during summers and would sometimes get a call offering a few hundred for a days or twos work and would take time off college to do it. Looking back I was definitely getting screwed on that wage compared to everyone else but any student would bite your hand off for it now.

    Every summer was working 6 days, playing GAA matches and going out a few nights a week. You'd win a match and some fella would push a fifty into your hand after and say have a good night. Lots of cocaine floating around. A young guy locally died one Friday night after doing a heap of it and it didn't slow anyone down. And it wasn't just young guys either, it would be sweaty 50 year olds with kids in the nightclubs off their heads.

    The other thing there seemed to be was loads of affairs. When the money ran out there were lots of relationship breakdowns. People stopped turning a blind eye.


  • #236
    JimmyVik
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,367 ✭✭✭JimmyVik


    John_Rambo wrote: »
    Amazing how many people claim they knew exactly what was going to happen during the boom and predicted what was going to happen. Particularly on the internet.

    I come across them all the time now but never ever came across them during the boom.

    They must be worth a fortune now.


    They were all at woodstock :)


  • #237
    facehugger99
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,384 ✭✭✭facehugger99


    I remember reading the property section of one of the Sunday papers. They would have a 2-bed terraced house in some dingy area of Dublin for crazy money but under the article they have a "or for similar money.." feature.

    One time, 'for similar money' you could have bought a chateau in the South of France with its own vineyard for the price of the 2-bed in Dublin.

    I remember thinking 'there's definitely something not right about this'.


  • #238
    John_Rambo
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,875 ✭✭✭John_Rambo


    facehugger99 wrote: »
    I remember reading the property section of one of the Sunday papers. They would have a 2-bed terraced house in some dingy area of Dublin for crazy money but under the article they have a "or for similar money.." feature.

    One time, 'for similar money' you could have bought a chateau in the South of France with its own vineyard for the price of the 2-bed in Dublin.

    I remember thinking 'there's definitely something not right about this'.

    Hate to break the news, but that's still the case. Always will be. City properties v rural properties is global too.


  • #239
    padd b1975
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,784 ✭✭✭✭padd b1975


    I remember flicking through the match programme before the 2004 All Ireland Final.

    That shyster Michael Lynn had taken an add out to flog some foreign apartments with the help of two 'celebrities'.

    They were none other than Rui Costa (famous Portuguese footballer so fair enough) and..... Eh...... Willie Joe Padden!


  • #240
    madmaggie
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,827 ✭✭✭madmaggie


    I had savings in EBS the time of the launch of the Eircom shares. Staff told me I was a fool not to invest. Kept my money on deposit.


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  • #241
    hoodie6029
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,045 ✭✭✭hoodie6029


    College made me miss most of it first hand. Plenty of fellas dropped out to work on sites. Getting loans to go on a J1 was pretty common.

    The student's union bought a brand new Freelander, God knows how they justified it. The guys elected that year were bald faced thieves though

    In 2006 one of my class mates bought a house on a 100% mortgage without a job because he would be letting the other 3 rooms back to students.

    Back in the 90's when my brothers were in college, if you got the grant, that pay back your parent's for rent etc and a few bob for yourself to get through the year. 2005/6/7, the grants came in and it was the biggest shopping day in town and night out. College was empty for days after they were paid. Needless to say, I didn't qualify for the grant.

    In 2003, maybe 4/5 people out of 200 in the year had a car. Come 2006 about a quarter of the class were driving to college and nobody could get parking :rolleyes:

    My brother was a taxi driver during the mad years. If he worked nights and if he didn't earn more than €300 it was a bad night. He was paid €50 on top of the fare to wait outside a house for 15 mins while the lads who'd flagged him got changed to go to their Christmas party.

    People paying €500,000 for a 1970's bungalow in Meath just to knock it and build a new house on the outline (no permission required) was pretty common.

    A local farmer built up his farm over 40 years into a strong enterprise. Passed it to his son who promptly started carving it up for development even though it was miles from anywhere. The son lost the lot in the crash and the parent's farm that they still live right next to is owned by a stranger and they can't go near it and have a crappy estate further down the road to boot.

    Dublin Business School used to offer a Property Development Diploma back then. Not construction studies or construction economics just a diploma in how to flip land and houses essentially

    As for the 'I know a fella who saved everything and didn't get burnt' stories, I've yet to meet one in real life. Undoubtedly some people did this but a lot of them were probably rich to start with or the type that wouldn't tell you they'd done well. I know I wouldn't be telling people how smart I was to not get burnt, pride before a fall and all that.

    This is water. Inspiring speech by David Foster Wallace https://youtu.be/DCbGM4mqEVw?si=GS5uDvegp6Er1EOG



  • #242
    chosen1
    Registered Users Posts: 417 ✭✭chosen1


    JimmyVik wrote: »
    I was very young and I worked in IT contracting for a particularly flamboyant company and they brought us all to an eastern european country for the weekend - more than once.
    They hired hookers at a lap dancing club and expensed it to the company.
    Even the two girls on our team were doing lines off lapdancers arses.
    Then on the flight home we were handed our bonus cheques, which were 5 figures.
    Even threw in gift vouchers for the wives at home too.

    On another similar trip they hired a yought. Huge thing, for 10 of us, plus invited guests and hookers and coke too.

    Free drink every Friday night for us all in the local pub too.

    Those were the days. Needless to say the company went belly up in the dot com bust.
    Never seen the like since. But a lot of my friends worked for companies at that time that did the same kind of stuff.
    Some were lucky to get into some that ipo'd and made a fortune. One guy I know was with 3 different companies one after the other that went public that each paid him over 30K bonus when they did.

    Did you work for the Wolf of Wall Street?


  • #243
    Limpy
    Users Awaiting Email Confirmation Posts: 1,105 ✭✭✭Limpy


    It was easier to get a ride on the weekend. Pubs and clubs weren't the same after all the redundancies.


  • #244
    Jim Root
    Registered Users Posts: 487 ✭✭Jim Root


    John_Rambo wrote: »
    Amazing how many people claim they knew exactly what was going to happen during the boom and predicted what was going to happen. Particularly on the internet.

    I come across them all the time now but never ever came across them during the boom.

    They must be worth a fortune now.

    I don’t believe half the stories in this thread or the 100+ identical ones on this site


  • #245
    hoodie6029
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,045 ✭✭✭hoodie6029


    And another one I just remembered, 05/06- whatever county-21 reg Mini's for the 'darling's' 21st.
    Unfortunately there is no puke emoji to end this post on!

    This is water. Inspiring speech by David Foster Wallace https://youtu.be/DCbGM4mqEVw?si=GS5uDvegp6Er1EOG



  • #246
    Salvadoor
    Registered Users Posts: 278 ✭✭Salvadoor


    hoodie6029 wrote: »
    And another one I just remembered, 05/06- whatever county-21 reg Mini's for the 'darling's' 21st.
    Unfortunately there is no puke emoji to end this post on!


    Reminds me of a local developers daughter who was given a BMW Z3 at her 21st birthday party from her parents



    She was inconsolable for the rest of the night as she wanted a Mercedes clk


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  • #247
    antimatterx
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,002 ✭✭✭antimatterx


    Salvadoor wrote: »
    Reminds me of a local developers daughter who was given a BMW Z3 at her 21st birthday party from her parents



    She was inconsolable for the rest of the night as she wanted a Mercedes clk

    Wonder how her life is now?


  • #248
    Wanderer78
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 29,909 ✭✭✭✭Wanderer78


    hoodie6029 wrote: »
    As for the 'I know a fella who saved everything and didn't get burnt' stories, I've yet to meet one in real life. Undoubtedly some people did this but a lot of them were probably rich to start with or the type that wouldn't tell you they'd done well. I know I wouldn't be telling people how smart I was to not get burnt, pride before a fall and all that.

    have to say i didnt do too badly out of the boom and bust, worked hard during the boom, got well educated, done a good bit of traveling, went to a ****e load of concerts etc, invested heavily and saved a lot to, got nice redundancy at the beginning of the crash, no debts, tis all good, a lot of luck i guess


  • #249
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 3,689 ✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    Recall at the height of the Celtic Tiger that implied inference that "If you did'nt have that much DISPOSABLE INCOME then you must be some kind of dimwit ne'er-do-well and no more.


  • #250
    JimmyVik
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,367 ✭✭✭JimmyVik


    chosen1 wrote: »
    Did you work for the Wolf of Wall Street?


    Name started with T and ended in h.
    Anyone else who worked for them will recognize it. Lots of tech companies were like that.

    If you think that story is hard to believe look up Baltimore technologies. I knew people working in there. My God, it maid where I worked look like a cafe.


  • #251
    madmaggie
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,827 ✭✭✭madmaggie


    I worked on an assembly line in a factory. My co workers were going shopping in New York and skiing every year. New cars and better clothes than me. I couldn't figure it out.


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