There are lots of more categories:There is a fourth category affected and it is the non homeowners who will pay higher taxes and have less services due to the property bubble.
They could have rented, just like people do in other countries. Oh, and if enough people had stayed at home with mammy and daddy the boom wouldn’t have been so big and the crash would have happened sooner. Anyway, that’s not the point I was making. Anyone selling something in a commercial setting will get the best price they can for it, be it you or I selling a second hand car or kitchen table or a developer selling a house. Suggesting that the root cause of our problems was the “greedy developers” is rubbish. Where corruption and bribery came into play it was a different matter.
Investors were falling over each other to buy houses to rent. In fact if investors had been kept out of the market by way of tax discentives (eg Bacon report) then property prices wouldn't have risen so drastically because we wouldn't have had investors competing on an unfair footing with potential home-owners.
And anyway, up to recently (last 3-4 years), the rental market as a minefield for renters with people not knowing what their rent was going to be from one year to the next. How was anybody supposed to raise a family or put down roots if you had to move every 12 months.
.
The list goes on and on when you think about it. Noticeable exceptions could be TDs and associated cronies.
Not all investors were falling over in the rush to buy property. The yields were atrocious so it didn't make sense to buy. Apart from that the purchase price plus stamp duty were gone crazy. Do you know that Bacon's recommendations were implemented and had to be changed within 2 years because Bacon was wrong.
Do you know that Bacon's recommendations were implemented and had to be changed within 2 years because Bacon was wrong.
btw - isn't there already enough threads about property developers and the celtic tiger boom based on consume and property?
There's a distinction between those who paid (what we now know was) over the odds for their principal residence and those who paid over the odds for discretionary items such as holiday homes, second cars,quote]
They're all purchases and all have to be paid for. Whether it's a principal residence or not, the cost, value and repayment terms should have been more thoroughly analysed by the purchasers. Given that the primary residence is such a big purchase whereby the buyer does mortgage their future you'd think a LOT more consideration would have been taken
Renting houses would not have stopped the boom from happening. Investors were falling over each other to buy houses to rent.
Increased supply = reduced rent.
In a closed shop yes. But we were going through a phase of importing people to help build houses and then a portion of these houses were going towards housing these same people. We couldn't build houses fast enough at the height of the boom.
For the record I would say that McInerneys and McNamaras are two of the better builders in the country, in terms of quality and design.
I used to live in an estate built by the McInerney and the reason why we did not buy the apartment and only continued renting it was the absolutely poor quality of the housing. No insulation, huge cracks in the walls, in the first apartment we lived in the uninsulated wiring was put so close to the water pipes that we were getting electric shocks when touching the water taps or in the shower. Both bathrooms were leaking. The second apartment which was built in the second phase had, again, both bathrooms leaking /the water was literally streaming down the wall when we were taking a shower/ and we were told by the tilers who did later repairs that the tiles were loosely glued to the wall with no additional insulation. The door in the ensuite shower was actually too big for the opening and they crammed it violently in. The first water pump was broken, i.e. no water pressure in the house when we moved in and the built-in dishwasher was connected so badly that it was constantly leaking water. They put in the second pump and then fixed the dishwasher with the result that the washing machine stopped working because they messed it up. The walls were damp no matter what we did.
If this is the better quality, I shudder at the thought on how the "worse quality" developers built their apartments.
I am sure I am going to lambasted for writing this.
I have just been reading todays papers about Bernard McNamara and saw him on the news last night also. I am finding it difficult not to feel a bit sorry for him (as a person).
I know this is probably mad (to feel sorry for him) but after working for years (most likely very hard) in a family business he now has nothing and is going to loose everything, effectively because he made miscalculated deals and because the banks allowed him to borrow extortionate amounts of money which he used personal guarantees for.
I just feel a little sorry for him and his family...
Anyone else feel any sympathy?
I used to live in an estate built by the McInerney and the reason why we did not buy the apartment and only continued renting it was the absolutely poor quality of the housing. No insulation, huge cracks in the walls, in the first apartment we lived in the uninsulated wiring was put so close to the water pipes that we were getting electric shocks when touching the water taps or in the shower. Both bathrooms were leaking. The second apartment which was built in the second phase had, again, both bathrooms leaking /the water was literally streaming down the wall when we were taking a shower/ and we were told by the tilers who did later repairs that the tiles were loosely glued to the wall with no additional insulation. The door in the ensuite shower was actually too big for the opening and they crammed it violently in. The first water pump was broken, i.e. no water pressure in the house when we moved in and the built-in dishwasher was connected so badly that it was constantly leaking water. They put in the second pump and then fixed the dishwasher with the result that the washing machine stopped working because they messed it up. The walls were damp no matter what we did.
If this is the better quality, I shudder at the thought on how the "worse quality" developers built their apartments.
And the need for effective enforcement of building standards by building control officers. I hear that one of the upsides of the construction downturn is that building control officers now have time to do their jobs properly and revisit sites to ensure that required changes are made.there is the possibility that this was an exceptional case, but if anything it highlights the need for a proper snag list.