House prices fell by up to 11% in Q3 2007

[Akrasia]

The latest report prepared by the Department for the Environment into house prices in Ireland shows that second hand house prices have fallen by 4% nationally and by almost 11% in the capital.

New house prices fell too, by around 3.3% in Dublin.

The spin doctors refuse to give up. In the Irish independent article, the ubiquitous "Stamp Duty" red herring raises its ugly head again as they pretend that buyers in July, August and September were waiting for stamp duty changes in the December budget (not content with the brand new post election stamp duty changes so?)

Now, it is true that the third quarter is traditionally a stagnant market, but that should result in stagnant prices, not the huge decreases that we have seen this year.

The discrepancy between the fall in new and second hand houses is probably down to the fact that new developments can offer extra incentives to encourage buyers rather than a reduction in price (free cars, entry into raffle, fully furnished, free kitchens etc) and they can also hold off launching their properties while they wait to see where the market is going, while second hand sellers are rarely in a position to do so.

From all anecdotal evidence, the market did not pick up following the summer quiet period (hence the pressure put on Cowen to change stamp duty again)

The 'soft landing' scenario predicted at the start of the year was based on house price growth slowing down or stopping, not actually falling, and certainly not falling by 10% in 3 months. There are a lot of charlatans and shills out there who have been lying through their teeth for years, and they are directly responsible for every hardship that this housing crash will visit on ordinary people.

http://breakingnews.ie/business/mheycwkfgbsn/
http://www.independent.ie/national-news ... 54222.html

[jimmyfour]

The latest report prepared by the Department for the Environment into house prices in Ireland shows that second hand house prices have fallen by 4% nationally and by almost 11% in the capital.

.... There are a lot of charlatans and shills out there who have been lying through their teeth for years, and they are directly responsible for every hardship that this housing crash will visit on ordinary people.

True, but I have no pity for people who bought mortgages beyond their means and without proper research on what could happen. Banks may be employing clever marketing people but at the end of the day you are buying a product that is incredibly expensive, and one that unlike many products can actually cost you more as time goes by.

Cop on and common sense FTW, unfortunately.

[constitutionus]

so finally we have official recognition of what the dogs in the streets have known for ages.

a cursory examination of the various property websites would show that houses arent shifting unless prices drop. pity i took em the guts of a year to cop on to what most of us could see a mile off.

personally i feel sorry of buyers in the last year or two. yes the old axiom of "buyer beware" shouldve been foremost in their minds but every one from the government to the media was telling them if they didnt get a house now they'd never get one so they have to shoulder some of the blame and the banks have been behaving shamefully in blatantly loaning to people who a blind monkey could see would be in trouble if things got tough. there are many people out there who never should have got a mortage in the first place. the 100% plus loans are our version of the american sub prime loans and have the potential to be just as bad news to the irish banks if people start defaulting on properties with negative equity.

still one things for sure. they'll fecking learn from this, if only in the short term.

[Akrasia]

True, but I have no pity for people who bought mortgages beyond their means and without proper research on what could happen. Banks may be employing clever marketing people but at the end of the day you are buying a product that is incredibly expensive, and one that unlike many products can actually cost you more as time goes by.

Cop on and common sense FTW, unfortunately.

There are laws out there that are supposed to prevent experts from lying to you. If you go to a mortgage broker who claims to be independent, and he sells you the worst mortgage on the market because he is being paid to by that company, then you have a right to go to the financial regulator and demand compensation.

If most of the Irish doctors got together with the media and launched a campaign to tell everyone that they need to buy expensive branded asprin because the generic stuff contains poisons, would you blame people for shifting to the expensive brands? It is not in their expertise to make a judgement on the safety of generic drugs themselves, so they trust experts.
The same thing happened with the media, the government, bankers, 'financial analysts' and estate agents over the last few years. They got together and told us to throw our money away on expensive overpriced houses because prices would always keep going up, interest rates would always stay 'historically low' and if we didn't buy now, we'd never be able to afford anything. Of course most Irish people believed them, if they tried to do their own research, where did they go to? the financial pages of the newspapers? those same newspapers that were making huge profits out of their property supplements pandering to estate agents. The only places where you could get the true picture of the property market were on-line, and even then, the debate was stifled (Ask About Money, Irelands best publicised financial website banned all discussion on a potential market crash just after they started accepting 'donations' from unnamed corporate sponsors)

[Dillinger]

They are being nice with those figures, its way more than 4% and 11%. Yes, the Indo is still trying to help FF and the Builders with their spin on the housing market. They don't want to tell the truth, which is, that the market is completely dead, there is nothing happening, the phones are silent.

[LegalismRules]

The same thing happened with the media, the government, bankers, 'financial analysts' and estate agents over the last few years. They got together and told us to throw our money away on expensive overpriced houses because prices would always keep going up, interest rates would always stay 'historically low' and if we didn't buy now, we'd never be able to afford anything.

Are you going to back up this assertion that the media, the government, bankers, financial analysts and estate agents "got together" to give advice based on the statements that "prices would always keep going up" and "interest rates would always stay 'historically low'", or are you just going to make such a ludicrous statement and assume nobody will call you up on it, as per usual?

I'm quite confident I can link to far more articles discussing the problems of leveraging our economy on "French and German" interest rates and predictions of housing market decline than you can link to reports that prices will rise indefinitely and that interest rates will never rise.

[Dillinger]

I think there will be bargains available in 2008/09, for anyone who has not over extended themselves and has some cash to spend.

[elfatih]

we'll probably have the IAVI and CIF blaming stamp duty for the downturn, they must never watch the news or do any economic analysis as to whats happening in the real world.... interest rates, housing prices dropping in countries such as UK/Spain, credit crunch with banks.

Also people are finally copping how over inflated prices are and that everybody doesnt need to own investment properties.

[Skin]

There is an apartment development off the Navan Rd(Dublin) offering a 25% off two-bed apartments, I heard also that in the auction houses the top of the market house price has also fallen by 25%.

[Akrasia]

The same thing happened with the media, the government, bankers, 'financial analysts' and estate agents over the last few years. They got together and told us to throw our money away on expensive overpriced houses because prices would always keep going up, interest rates would always stay 'historically low' and if we didn't buy now, we'd never be able to afford anything.

Are you going to back up this assertion that the media, the government, bankers, financial analysts and estate agents "got together" to give advice based on the statements that "prices would always keep going up" and "interest rates would always stay 'historically low'", or are you just going to make such a ludicrous statement and assume nobody will call you up on it, as per usual?

I'm quite confident I can link to far more articles discussing the problems of leveraging our economy on "French and German" interest rates and predictions of housing market decline than you can link to reports that prices will rise indefinitely and that interest rates will never rise.

Most of the government and estate agent propaganda took place in television and radio interviews.
Prime Time has been by far the most bearish program in the Irish media, and even there, they still give loads of airtime to spindoctors telling people there is going to be a soft landing and that house prices won't fall in Ireland.
This is one from last October.

http://www.rte.ie/news/2006/1019/primetime.html

We knew that the housing market was fecked since before last September, but all the way to the election, the politicians of all parties (except the socialist party) still maintained loony predictions about the future prospects of the irish housing market were still the discourse of the day.

We were being told that we're different, unique, and a crash couldn't happen in Ireland.