Interesting articles. From the fidelity one
Inverted yield curves are rare. Never ignore them. They are always followed by economic slowdown -- or outright recession -- as well as lower interest rates across the board
So if interest rates start going lower, that is good news for property purchasers and means that people will be able to borrow more again. I suppose the question is how this is offset by the rising unemployment, that one would expect in a recession. Then we need to factor in the local supply and demand picture. And of course "sentiment" (the starting point of the thread).
It all looks very complicated, and I'm not sure how anyone can predict Irish house price developments in any direction with a high degree of certainty. I suppose a worst case scenario would be US recession and a resulting rise in unemployement in Ireland (which is highly dependant on the US), but a strong Eurozone economy (which is somewhat less dependant on the US) and Eurozone inflation, resulting in high interest rates in Ireland. But, to be honest it's hard to see the Eurozone economy remaining strong if companies can't export to the US.
I suppose if energy prices keep increasing, the ECB could say we have an inflation problem and increase interest rates, even if this results in a recession. But if this affected large Eurozone countries, I'm sure the politicians would move quickly to change the ECB's mandate or defintion of inflation (to exclude external energy costs).
All in all, I think the world economy has become dependant on low interest rates, and I can't see how this will change. Predictions of ECB rates rising to 6 or 7% or more just don't seem realistic to me. What does this mean for Irish house prices?