House Viewings

I posted this in the buying and selling thread and then saw this thread:

I emailed an agent about viewing a house and they have come back to me and said they have a video they can send on but first I would have to provide proof of mortgage approval or proof of funds - so I don't get to see the property in person and to even see the video of the house, i have to give them proof of funds? Is this the way things are now?

bubblypop wrote: »

Proof of funds before you can watch a video?
Ridiculous

Agreed.
We are bidding on a house However we did see photos, video (on YouTube by EA) and now only proved AIP.
Waiting to see if we got outbid or not to view this house

bubblypop wrote: »

Proof of funds before you can watch a video?
Ridiculous

I know, I mean who’s to say I’ll be bidding on it? I mightn’t think it’s worth putting in an offer if I actually see it - which is what you have to do in order to make an informed decision. I’ve seen lots of photos of houses before I went to view them and thought they looked great and when I went to view them it was a different story. I shouldn’t have to be providing them with evidence that I’m mortgage approved or have enough funds in normal circumstances for Gods sake, never mind just to see a video, which to me isn’t much different from
the photos on daft.

Shelga wrote: »

I viewed a house this morning. Pretty sure the EA was breaking the rules, as 90% of EAs have told me viewings are banned, even for vacant properties.

I no longer care. The house I viewed today was vacant, I didn’t touch anything and I didn’t go near the EA. It’s madness forbidding viewings of vacant properties. People are going crazy with not being allowed to move forward with their lives and buy somewhere, as if it wasn’t already hard enough.

Agree that you can’t force tenants to facilitate viewings during a pandemic, nor should you, but this blanket ban on all viewings is just needlessly cruel, at this stage.

People need to feel like they are being given the opportunity somehow to make some progress with their lives. A year this sh*t has been going on now.

At this stage, Im just going to blanket ignore what the Govt says, I'll wear a mask and keep up with appropriate protection measures and separation, but when the Govt?state cant even abide by their own directions/laws, their own cohorts (golf gate) can shamelessly get away with what they please (the attendees anyway, not some other poor sap who runs a business, rightly or wrongly), they have allowed 5000 people waltz into the Country in the last Month from high risk Countries alone! and wont say a damn to the businesses that supports, yet shut everywhere else down, Which is it!? its one or the other.
At this point, Id think isolation for those at risk and maybe even wholesale ignoring/flouting any opinions/advice by the State (and thats from a person that supported/practiced closing down and caution in regard to all this).
I dont mind being patient, but the Govt/State have dithered and basically fcuked up any opportunity to grab this by the balls, I know vaccine availability is a critical matter, but their double standards are starting to pi$$ me off.
Everyone who can, should just get on with their lives, blanket ignore/avoid any state employee who says otherwise, cant lock us all up, they cant even stop a few people entering the Country, never mind the 5k plus that did.

Baby01032012 wrote: »

I think there is a level of panic bidding which is not logical. We’re in a pandemic with resultant recession. Very few properties on market no physical viewing and I’ve seen properties bids way above recent sales.

And all this not allowing people to even see a video before proof of funds is just whipping up a frenzy. And we all know what happens when the frenzy stops.

There is a massive shortage in housing. And it is only going to get worse. There were not being enough built before lockdowns started. Now we are even further behind, due to close downs in construction and the halt on building of new houses. Based on this, we are not in a short term, artificially inflated price bubble. It is fully expected that prices will rise for years to come.

Plus a lot of people have managed to save bigger deposits themselves and have family that can gift them money towards bigger bids. And there is more desire to get out of rental accomodation.

I haven't been following this thread but I've just read the last couple of pages. I feel I should give my differing opinion. I think that if someone can afford a house that they want, they should go ahead, and not be expecting prices to come down. Of course no one should do it on a whim and should spend time really thinking about it. Panic bidding is never a good thing.

I agree that the prices have gone up loads recently and houses are going for way above asking. That's a reflection on the current market and the increased demand. It's depressing all the same. And it should not be this way.

I don't see house viewings as breaking the rules. You can make a trip associated with moving house and this for me qualifies. It's just not feasible otherwise, it's an absolutely essential process

lalababa wrote: »

You'd think it would be the other way round....mass unemployment, economy in the tank... uncertainty everywhere...but no apparently not.
Only 10,000 houses for sale on Daft , a very ,very low supply.

Well there may be an element of people not willing to put up a listing while all this is going on. I wonder what % of these houses for sale have been there for a long time.

There might be uncertainty but there is also a case to say that people have yet to feel the pinch of this lockdown. Income has been propped up by expensive funding schemes, which won't last forever. We'll see the economic fallout of this when the supports stop (assuming they will).

It's difficult to gauge just exactly what percentage of people are actually unemployed. Make sense of this!:

https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/er/mue/monthlyunemploymentjanuary2021/

As for the supply issue, for me this is the key component. Without having full visibility of the data on this, I can only assume that there's a huge percentage of dwellings which are not owned by the occupier i.e. investment properties. Any increase in supply will come from this landlord class in my opinion rather than new builds. By this I speak of sales as opposed to room rentals.

If the re-opening of the economy sees us having a raft of people unable to keep up with rent payments then you can expect big pressure on those investors/landlords to sell. Bear in mind while there is uncertainty which leads people into rush buying, the same is true if the uncertainty moves from the buying group to the selling group.

There's quite a few things in play which could move the prices down (interest rate increases, increase in unemployment, removal of restrictions). All of these strike me as being very likely.

However, there are other factors which could move it the other way (devaluation of currency, hyperinflation, ramp-up in housing schemes for immigrants and social housing.....downward pressure on supply).

I think both sides are powerful and both likely to come through, but I wouldn't want to estimate which way will win out. Either way I think the system is entirely broken and many people in this country have been badly letdown by those supposedly running the country.