New RTE programme "Burnt by the Sun" - Part 2 will be on Monday 18 May

Status
Not open for further replies.
but one thing that never happens in Ireland is illegal properties getting demolished which the spanish authorities will carry out. An awful lot of structures were erected without planning permission and are still standing. Remember the infamous "Achill henge" a mass concrete monstrocity erected on the previously unspoiled landscape constructed by a rogue developer and is still standing a decade later.
Achill Henge should stand forever as testimony to what was the madness of the entire population during the Celtic Tiger. The madman who built it was a genius to have constructed it in such a location. Yes I’ve been, specifically wanted to see it.
 
The madman who built it was a genius to have constructed it in such a location
It's a mass concrete tank like structure, it's hardly the coliseum, stuff like this is erected in many industrial sites all over the country. That's the point though they are for industrial sites not beauty spots.
That guy was a mad man, yes, sure didn't he also try and crash a concrete lorry through the gates of Leinster house. Then he scidadled out of the country
 
It does bring back memories of 15 years ago when the madness was in full swing. And while there were obviously lies and corruption, for many investors, I think had common sense been used they would have probably found good overseas investment opportunities. With investments we often hear about the two extremes of major winners and terrible losers, but most overseas investors I know continue to do well. Budapest values took a long and excruciating time to start rising from a very low base for example, but they eventually did shoot up.
 
Budapest values took a long and excruciating time to start rising from a very low base for example, but they eventually did shoot up.

That was the difference though, Budapest is a capital city so you were very likely to have a good investment eventually, if irish people had invested in Madrid, Seville or Bucharest rather than "sunny beech" etc they would also have come good. They bought the dream and fooled themselves into thinking it was an investment
 
Absolutely. Agree with that. Budapest was one of the first places though that Irish overseas investors looked at in the boomy years. The whole Sunny Beach/Cape Verde thing never made any sense!
 
@budapest I think the mindset of the typical irish person fifteen years ago was alot different to today, many were ignorant of the cities of Spain etc , Spain to them was a sun holiday, it never crossed their minds that there was alot more to Spain than Santa Ponza.
 
Back tonight, havent seen any promotion for it though, I bet its been completely reedited from what they were going to show us before the "mix-up"...
 
maybe i misheard but did one of the contributors say he was attracted to the 9k per year guarenteed income on a managed property in france that cost over 200 k ?

thats a terrible yield
 
Last edited:
Horrific stories in this episode. Did not realise the full extent of some cases. Bulgaria and its corruption comes out of this particularly badly.

However, they did gloss over the fact that a major global recession took place a couple of years after most of this happened though.
 
Last edited:
I think the french leaseback was the most unexpected, it seemed the most legitimate scheme, the properties were good quality and already in existence and in France.
Maybe thats one advantage of investing in equities, when trouble hits it hits fast, you take the loss straight away and get over it, you dont invest with borrowed money and you are not dealing with a physical costly building shambles a decade later.
 
I think the french leaseback was the most unexpected,

What ????

I remember people telling me about the brilliant scheme with guaranteed returns. I told them that I did not need to look at the paperwork and they would lose out badly. That it would depend on the status of the guarantor. I was told I was too conservative.

The outcome was exactly as expected.

Brendan
 
Hi Joe

Here is a thread from the time.


There are plenty of warnings in the thread as there were about overseas property in general on askaboutmoney at the time.

But the warnings did get swamped by the enthusiasm of the greedy investors.

I remember the topic of overseas property investment caused us huge problems on askaboutmoney.

People were making defamatory comments all over the place. They were probably well justified. But I would have spent a lot of time in courts defending myself from the many legal threats we received.

This discussion is bringing back all the nightmares from the time:



And then the usual "Askaboutmoney is censoring free discussion of overseas property.".

Brendan
 
@Brendan Burgess fair play so there was a lengthy discussion on this site way back then about them . It really caught the Celtic tiger frame of mind. The French leaseback lawyer was very good, plain English, the Irish ones could learn a thing or two from him
 
The leaseback story in last night's program was tragic. The ( former) couple were so genuine and decent. So sad.

The bulgarian nightmare ....was a real nightmare
I remember attending 2 (?) of these property exhibitions and just thank god I was so conservative!
 
But......the French lawyer advised the couple to renew their lease on their house now valued at €40k......it would have been nice to know how much this might have cost....
Also in Bulgaria…...are the people who are paying their increased management charges on Sunny Beach getting water and electricity as normal, or has it all been switched off?
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top