Public sentiment towards the housing market.... I know this thread is about Irish sentiment, but I thought some of you might be interested in the US.
I live in Key Biscayne, a wealthy part of Miami, FL. (I rent the smallest apartment on the island!). I thought about buying in 2005 - a local (Irish realtor (Estate Agent) was of the opinion that Key Biscayne was nuclear proof and that prices could only go up or stabilise briefly. But the Fed raised interest rates, the property developers in Miami and SOuth FLorida continued to build and now..... across the board, we're looking at prices that are 10% less than they were last year - best rent money I ever paid!
Miami is a hotspot in property in the US - and prices are falling, even as rents rise (more people are less willing to buy - so they rent, pushing up rental prices, but property prices are falling). Housing inventory is at it's highest in 13 years, and there are still 85,000 units to be completed before June 2007! Developers have started walking away from land options, cancelling large condo projects. The main talk about property now is how big is the bubble and when it will burst.
It is bound to come to Ireland too.I left Dublin / Ireland in 2001 becasue I was priced out of it - I basically felt that it was either a lifetime of scrimping and saving to live in a house I felt was acceptable or 15- 20 years of scrimping and saving to live in a dump. Of course, if I'd realised that the mania would continue, I could have bought and sold and made a tidy sum. Oh well. I've been a bear for years, reading the papers and these threads, my opinion is only strengthened.
The question I would ask is WHY live in Ireland now? Why be an FTB? If you're 22 and fresh out of college or considering becoming an FTB, then leave it, gain some foreign work experience, (it will always stand to you in your career) wait for the bubble that virtually everyone expects, and then come back to lower property prices?
Vested interest? I own no property anywhere in the world, would like to return to Ireland at some stage, but only when prices become more realistic. Roll on the crash.