mhenness

@Bob Dole wrote:

Indeed and their own agendas – which is why one shouldn’t listen to people like Dan “Interest rates will stop at 3.5%” McLaughlin from Bank of Ireland – as he has a vested interest in talking up the market.
The best people to listen to are Trichet and the ECB themselves.

Interest rates are returning to normal – the normal rates for the Euro are 4-5% – this is based on the historical Deutschemark interest rates. Again you should listen to the ECB who say the current environment is “accomodative” – i.e. historically low.

Yes it is – again read what the ECB says.

Fair point. Listening to those who don’t have a vested interest makes good sense (when they know what they are talking about).

@Bob Dole wrote:

Correct – if there is a house price correction of approximately 50%. You should also pay attention to the collapsing American housing bubble – rental yields there were 7%, and yet house prices are falling.

Current demand for property is fueled by speculation on future rises in the price on houses. It is not bought for investment purposes (i.e. based on the rental yield returned by the property). As such, it relies on the “Greater Fool Theory”. To simplify things – it is currently a pyramid scheme. I believe you will also find that up to a certain point, it was easy to find people who wanted to join the numerous pyramid schemes that have been doing the rounds.

The source? Was it an Estate Agent or a tied economist, who followed it up with “so buy property now”?

A report from NCB today.

@Bob Dole wrote:

Bubbles by definition burst.
275,000 houses in Ireland currently lie idle, which are complete and not owned by developers and excluding holiday homes (according to the CSO) – a further 95,000 houses are to be built this year alone. There is an oversupply of housing at present. Supply outstrips demand.

Rental yields will need to go up by 250% to reach historic norms – this is at a time with a massive oversupply of housing and if (when) there is a recession, many immigrants will leave in search of work.

I’m currently in a position where I am “trading up”. I have made a 100% gain in the value of my property over the last 4 years. Do you think now is a good time to do this? In a perfect situation I could sell now and wait to see how the market goes over the next year or so and then buy when prices collapse. Not sure if I can wait that long though….

@Bob Dole wrote:

It went past rational in 2002 – when due to house price inflation, rental yields fell below 5%. Yields are now in the 2%-3% bracket – less than the amount of money you get in a deposit account with Northern Rock (4%) . Betting on “capital appreciation” which is not backed up by yield is simple speculation rather than investment.
Askaboutmoney.com is a better forum for this topic though.

I guess what I meant by wanting it to stayl rational is that investors don’t all leave the market at once…which could cause a price crash. I’m selling my own property at the moment in order to trade up. I have an investor interested but not sure why they are exactly for the reasons you stated. It is safer and more profitable from a yield point of view to put your money in a savings a/c. Clearly this person believes good capital appreciation is still on the cards. Who knows…the economists have been wrong in their predictions more than once!

@kite wrote:

With most houses now failing to sell at auction and many apartments lying idle since built….

Just curious as to where you came across this information? Are these facts or just generally accepted as being the case? I thought that initial part of your comment related only to houses in Dublin failing to sell at auction?

@kite wrote:

A major redevelopment of Kent Station for 4 million!!
A house extention in some parts of the Country would cost more.:eek:
I assume that figure as printed in the Echo is a misprint?

I don’t think it’s a misprint. If you look at the list of things they are proposing to do, they are only a subset of the original plans where they said they would create a plaza at the back of kent station so travellers could walk straight towards the city centre over a new pedestrian bridge. I don’t see even an ambiguous suggestion that they are going to do this in the article. 🙁

@corkdood wrote:

Not too sure A-Ha. I heard almost a year ago that BOS had done a deal to buy the ESB retail shops around the country but obviously that didn’t go ahead.

Are you saying that no ESB shop in the country has been converted over to a BOSI branch??

@THE_Chris wrote:

We need it all really.

Cork needs those other 2 flyovers done. It also needs the patchwork of Dunkettle sorted out, and possibly the north ring, but not quite yet for that.

The Bus service needs a compete and utter overhaul.

We need a LUAS type system, running from the train station, to the bus station, down Patricks Street, out to UCC, to CIT and other spurs as needed.

I totally agree with you and each mode of transport needs to be integrated so it can have the effect of creating an efficient and easy system to use. I can see the possibility of developers becoming involved in paying for a LUAS type system in Cork just like it is beginning to happen in Dublin. It may be up to the government to install a central line as you suggested but other spurs to new and existing population centres could be paid for (at least partially) by developers who would also benefit.

@A-ha wrote:

Next always gets bad press for just being another British high street retailer. But some of the ones in places like London and Birmingham don’t even resemble Next over here. Large stores with twice the amount of goods for sale, including furniture. I’ve never seen a Next over here selling furniture. I always thought Woolworths would do well here, but they left the Irish market years and years ago.

Woolworths left at a time when the Irish economy was going down the tubes.

@Angry Rebel wrote:

Providing infrastructure is not the same thing as building houses, and in fact, given the high level of housing provided, there should be accelerated delivery of infrastructure to support these developments. This means roads, public transport, schools, medical facilities, public space and much more.

Dedicating central lanes is one of the more pointless ideas I’ve heard in a while. For a start, having an increased number of pedestrians in the centre of the road, who must cross lanes of traffic to access the central median to leave or enter buses is dangerous and disruptive to traffic flows. Furthermore, there is space to run buses in those lanes, but generally not enough to provide a safe and comfortable boarding area.

Re motorrways: 3 years of a delay in delivering a road of only 160 miles is laughable, and something you would not see in most other developed countries. You must wonder who was in charge of making sure we had the expertise, the knowledge and the gumption to put their hands up and say, “Hang on, we don’t know what we’re doing here, let’s talk to someone who’s done it before”.

Do you know for a fact that similar issues have not appeared in other developed countries when they were trying to role out their motorway network?

@Thomond Park wrote:

I agree the 10-20kms was laughable given the fiscal set up since 1995 or so.

MHenness

The NDP stated that you would have a full motorway to Dublin by years end, you currently have a dual carriageway to Wattergrasshill which leaves a 100 kms plus gap to Portlaoise

It’s been accepted by many for a long time that the original NDP timeframe was not going to be delivered on for roads. I’m not saying that this is acceptable but in fairness it is the first time a government in Ireland and our civil service have tried to plan such projects and it does take time to learn and get it right. I think they have this nailed now in relation to road projects. I would also like to see the records of other countries when they tried to deliver their road projects back in the 50’s and 60’s. Did they also have the same teething problems that our administrators have had?

@Pug wrote:

Rolling stock? more like laughing stock. Carriages were due to be rolled out in Dec 05 – now it appears there may be ONE of the new trains MAYBE next month. Irish Rail should be privatised. Its the only way the company will work

This does not mean that it isn’t going to happen and that the new services wont deliver improvements. You might be right about privatization of the Cork to Dublin line. I’m not sure about all services yet. That said the results of privatization are not clear. There are cases where state rail companies can deliver excellent services like DB in Germany. That said DB is operated as a private company but the state holds all the shares :-). I’m sure some form of privatization will eventually come. Even Germany’s rail services are coming up for competition in the near future. Without a doubt privatization of Irish Rail will not come without pain 🙂