First-time buyers unable to take advantage of falling house prices...

[MsAnneThrope]

Restrictions? Like "prove you actually saved this deposit and it isn't made up of yet more debt from the Credit Union"? That's a restriction?

Probably a bad choice of word on my part in hindsight. Requirements would have been better. You are right too to point out the situation about borrowing the deposit from another institution. This was rampant during the boom.

I agree with H.R. Haldeman that it's another symptom of vastly overpriced housing here. All the arguments lead back to the same thing. I am all for further house price reductions here as I consider them scandalously overpriced too. I just sympathise with young couples today, and I know a few, who really want their own place. I keep telling them to wait until at least 2010 as prices still have some way to go down here. We could end up like Japan yet and experience over a decade of declining house prices.

btw I own my own home which I bought in the early 1990s so I'm not directly effected by any of this, and my house is worth a lot more even today, by a multiplier, than what I paid for it. But the value of my home today is immaterial to me as I don't intend to move from here and I don't have any loans secured on it. I was just thinking of people entering the market today.

[Digout]

Prices will continue to fall, anybody buying now is insane.

[SamVimesBoots]

Why would anyone enter the market today?

There's a glut of rental properties and rents are falling all the time. What is this "need" to buy? You can get 3-bedroom townhouses for quite reasonable monthly rents now if you look.

People just need to realise that all this panic and guilt heaped on their heads by the older generation that they MUST buy as soon as they get married or have a baby is just bloody voodoo, it's just as illogical and potentially damaging as all the Church voodoo and has about as much to back it up.

You buy when you have spent a couple of years managing your finances to build a deposit, thus getting used to what will be required for the next 20+ years. You buy when a good house in a good location that is convenient for work, shops, schools etc is available at a price you can afford and that you will be happy to live in for a decade or more. There is no ladder, there are no "starter homes", these are just mystical religious scams by the fanatical cult-like devotees of the great and vengeful God Everrisinghouseprices.

Can we start making major decisions - or any decisions - in this country based on logic and numeracy and, Bob help us, application of rationality; instead of hyperemotionalism, myths and fairy stories? Sometime? Maybe? No?

[MsAnneThrope]

Why would anyone enter the market today?

People just need to realise that all this panic and guilt heaped on their heads by the older generation that they MUST buy as soon as they get married or have a baby is just bloody voodoo

I agree. And it will probably take a couple more generations to die out completely. But what has happened in Ireland now will be a turning point to making renting more acceptable. The laws just need to keep pace. The Germans always thought we were complete fruitcakes when it came to property. Kids barely out of school lumbering themselves with 35 year mortgages just to keep up with the Jones'. Madness.

[feargach]

Strict lending conditions stopping first-time buyers entering market: Irish Examiner

I agree we shouldn't go back to the days of 100% mortgages but are the banks being too strict now? There are people/couples, employed in the same good jobs for many years, who are unable to buy a house now due to these restrictions.

Is it going to be a case of our existing wealthy landlord classes, who already own multiple houses and apartments to rent out, being the only beneficiaries of falling property prices? If they take a long-term view they can pick up bargains now and in the future that should be worth considerably more in a few years time. And in the meantime rent out these properties to the very kind of people who want to buy them but are unable to?

What a mess this whole property obsession has created

No, this is very good news.

The more people save, the cheaper houses get.