Irish Times: House prices in Ireland could drop by 80%

GracieP

dopester wrote: »

You can blame TV shows, parents and friends for their expectations on how house prices only go up... but that is because they are idiots.

Or maybe, just maybe, they just wanted to own their own home and didn't give a crap as to whether it would rise or fall in price. Also this bubble seems to have been unprecedented in it's length. Plenty of people thought prices would fall and waited and waited for them to do so. Instead year after year they saw the houses they could afford become fewer and fewer and further away from what they should have had the right to expect. It's no surprise that many people became disillusioned about waiting for a crash, especially as renting isn't a secure option for a family.

Believing that we had entered a new paradigm and that prices may not crash wasn't as foolish as you'd like to think. Especially when the government and media constantly threw around the "housing shortage" myth. I don't think that it would be right to ruin the lives of people who genuinely just wanted a home, and thought they were being responsible.

Those who MEW'd and borrowed from all available sources are a different matter.

dopester

StevieJ wrote: »

No it isn't

Telegraph 19th Jan 2009

Help Ireland or it will exit euro, economist warns

A leading Irish economist has called on Dublin to threaten withdrawal from the euro unless Europe's big powers do more to rescue Ireland's economy.

By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
Last Updated: 9:12AM GMT 19 Jan 2009

"This is war: countries have to defend themselves," said David McWilliams, a former official at the Irish central bank.

"It is essential that we go to Europe and say we have a serious problem. We say, either we default or we pull out of Europe," he told RTE radio.

Mr McWilliams said EMU was preventing Irish recovery. "The only way we can win this war is by becoming, once again, an export country. We can do what we are doing now, which is to reduce our wages, throw more people on the dole and suffer a long contraction.

The other model is what the British are doing. Britain is letting sterling fall so that the problem becomes someone else's. But we, of course, have ruled this out by our euro membership. "We are paying twice for the euro: once on the exchange rate and once more on the interest rate," he said.

"By keeping with the current policy, the state is ensuring that Ireland turns itself into a large debt-repayment machine. Is this the sort of strategy to win wars? " he said.

The first way is the solution. Cut wages, don't take on more debt to help debt culture... go with the deflation. His "British way" won't work because there is less demand around the world anyway for most things we have to offer the world - but the first way is harder still when your tied up in to the Euro framework.

There IS a country worse off than us... how Ireland was destroyed by obscene greed and the euro

By Mary Ellen Synon
Last updated at 12:06 PM on 23rd January 2009

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1126636/MARY-ELLEN-SYNON-There-IS-country-worse--Ireland-destroyed-obscene-greed--Euro.html

StevieJ

dervish wrote: »

:mad:
what a pathetically stupid comment.

If you mean Britain created a benevolent Empire and gave the world deocarcy, law, technology and English language then I might agree.

War is always a last result for us.

Yes, we crept into India predending to do business:D Remember Robert Clive and the East India Company.

dopester

GracieP wrote: »

Plenty of people thought prices would fall and waited and waited for them to do so. Instead year after year they saw the houses they could afford become fewer and fewer and further away from what they should have had the right to expect. It's no surprise that many people became disillusioned about waiting for a crash, especially as renting isn't a secure option for a family.

Believing that we had entered a new paradigm and that prices may not crash wasn't as foolish as you'd like to think. Especially when the government and media constantly threw around the "housing shortage" myth. I don't think that it would be right to ruin the lives of people who genuinely just wanted a home, and thought they were being responsible.

Yes.. nevertheless.. I couldn't bring myself to buy in to the new paradigm as prices went up and up to every greater incredible heights. Intelligence gets rewarded - as it should do.

Same here.. I wanted a home and fully know renting isn't a secure option.. and I've suffered for that as well, but still didn't get drawn in to buy. Intelligence for that, and patience, should get rewarded.

The manic phase of the boom lasts for several years. Properties come to sell at absurd prices on the expectation that they will appreciate to still more absurd prices. And they do. They defy gravity, moving from one lofty high to another, month after month, year after year, long enough to lure otherwise prudent people in to mortgaging their gains to reinvest in the inflated assets on margin.

Before the market can top, near enough everyone who could conceivably be drawn in must have already become a buyer. And debt levels supporting the asset prices must be many times higher than any that could conceivably be serviced out of the cash flow yielded by the investments themselves.

Then comes the bust. Just as everyone has come to count on the idea that lofty asset values are permanent, there is a crash.

Pre-credit-crunch - people heard what they wanted to hear - and deliberately blocked out logical dangers:

Rosie Millard: We heard an awful lot about this crash.. 2 or 3 years ago.. then it just didn't happen, but maybe it did happen but a soft landing... and it never quite takes off.

Merryn Somerset Webb: Absolutely but saying that something isn't going to happen because it hasn't happened yet doesn't really make any sense - that's like saying that because I haven't died yet I wont.. but I guess I probably will.

And a housing crash is much the same. Something not happening simply makes it more likely that it will, rather than it won't - if the conditions are in place. And the conditions are in place for a housing crash just in the same way they are in for me to die.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=htpjBOFgGoo&feature=related

harry_w

In the UK the Lawson boom and early 90s of negative equity were very recent memories. There's really no excuse for not considering that house prices might go down.

There's also perversity in the economy being distorted and the currency devalued by ZIRP and QE and the state funding for mortgage deferrals which means new lending can't take place because capital has to be set aside against mortgages in arrears.

GracieP

dervish wrote: »

:mad:
what a pathetically stupid comment.

If you mean Britain created a benevolent Empire and gave the world deocarcy, law, technology and English language then I might agree.

War is always a last result for us.

Benevolent? Really?

England sold hundreds of thousands of the residents of it's colonies into slavery. It brutalised the people who dared speak or teach their indigenous languages or practice their majority religions. It plundered the national resources of the colonies often sending it's local populace into famine. It confiscated land and gave it to it's chosen subjects as a reward. And dealt harshly with any attempt by a country to gain independence or self-governance. And that's just in the country this thread is about.

As for the assertions that England brought democracy to it's colonies, your ignorance and arrogance is astounding. You have clearly never heard of the Ogboni, of the Oyo confederation and Egba peoples, who had a highly sophisticated system of government which was consensus based, and to be quite frank superior in many ways to the current democratic systems. Or have no idea that in Ireland and Scotland Celtic cheiftans were democratically elected by their clans. They also had laws which stated that nobody could own more than one house until everyone in the tribe/settlement was housed. On the Indian subcontinent there is evidence of democratic republics which existed from as early as the 6th century. The Gupta and Mauryan empires of India also had evident democratic elements. Hardly surprising as the worlds oldest known democracy was Kalinga, and ancient kingdom of Indian peoples, which was on the east of the subcontinent, mostly in the present day state of Orissa. Yet you assert that England brought democracy, through unarguably undemocratic means, to the very people who appear have invented the concept.:rolleyes:

I am not a believer in blaming the nationals of a country for the actions of their ancestors. Especially when the ancestors of the majority of English people were equally as exploited by the ruling classes as the indigenous people of their colonies. But when somebody comes out with the kind of uneducated, propagandised-revisionist history evidenced in your post I can see why so many people feel resentment and anger at the English.

GracieP

dopester wrote: »

Same here.. I wanted a home and fully know renting isn't a secure option.. and I've suffered for that as well, but still didn't get drawn in to buy. Intelligence for that, and patience, should get rewarded.

I'm not suggesting that bankruptcy should be as easy as it is in the UK, I don't think it should. Unless you are self-employed or work in quite a small field that consequences of bankruptcy to clear yourself of outstanding monies after repossession is too easy. But for genuinely misguided people who just tried to buy a modest home, something like 5 years should be the maximum bankruptcy period. At least it gives you a better shot of starting over.

If you ever MEWed, bought a property obviously beyond your means and needs, have multiple properties or have significant unsecured debt, then hitting them with the full 12 years seems fair enough.

That's what I'd implement if it was up to me.

dervish

GracieP wrote: »

Benevolent? Really?

England sold hundreds of thousands of the residents of it's colonies into slavery. It brutalised the people who dared speak or teach their indigenous languages or practice their majority religions. It plundered the national resources of the colonies often sending it's local populace into famine. It confiscated land and gave it to it's chosen subjects as a reward. And dealt harshly with any attempt by a country to gain independence or self-governance. And that's just in the country this thread is about.

As for the assertions that England brought democracy to it's colonies, your ignorance and arrogance is astounding. You have clearly never heard of the Ogboni, of the Oyo confederation and Egba peoples, who had a highly sophisticated system of government which was consensus based, and to be quite frank superior in many ways to the current democratic systems. Or have no idea that in Ireland and Scotland Celtic cheiftans were democratically elected by their clans. They also had laws which stated that nobody could own more than one house until everyone in the tribe/settlement was housed. On the Indian subcontinent there is evidence of democratic republics which existed from as early as the 6th century. The Gupta and Mauryan empires of India also had evident democratic elements. Hardly surprising as the worlds oldest known democracy was Kalinga, and ancient kingdom of Indian peoples, which was on the east of the subcontinent, mostly in the present day state of Orissa. Yet you assert that England brought democracy, through unarguably undemocratic means, to the very people who appear have invented the concept.:rolleyes:

I am not a believer in blaming the nationals of a country for the actions of their ancestors. Especially when the ancestors of the majority of English people were equally as exploited by the ruling classes as the indigenous people of their colonies. But when somebody comes out with the kind of uneducated, propagandised-revisionist history evidenced in your post I can see why so many people feel resentment and anger at the English.

Why dont you form your own opinions instead of just repeating the mantra of lefties?

Read Niall Ferguson's "Empire" if you really want to understand what the EMPIRE DID FOR THE WORLD. and guess what? it was mostly all positive!

StevieJ

dervish wrote: »

Why dont you form your own opinions instead of just repeating the mantra of lefties?

Read Niall Ferguson's "Empire" if you really want to understand what the EMPIRE DID FOR THE WORLD. and guess what? it was mostly all positive!

A lot of the benefits lie in the language, eg India and call centres. However the world domination of the English language is probably more due to the Septics than us.

itsallagame_2

dervish wrote: »

:mad:
what a pathetically stupid comment.

If you mean Britainand gave the world deocarcy, law, technology and English language then I might agree.

War is always a last result for us.

Ha!ha! its dervish again:rotfl:


Do yourself a favour; go do some impartial reading on how we created a benevolent Empire.
Might spare you the embarrassment of your comments in future.




Not taking any more bait