IT: You can never buy at the wrong time

[jost]

Mixed messages, with a few choice quotes, from the IT’s resident interior designer:

The only people who are likely to suffer are those who bought a property at the height of the boom, in early 2006 and, without having since added value (extending or renovating), are now being forced to sell. They haven’t had time to build up equity in their property due to the recent slowdown in capital appreciation. Therefore, if they could possibly sit tight for a while, they would eventually weather the storm.

For the majority of us who have owned our property for three years or more, we can relax in the knowledge that we were lucky enough to have benefited greatly from the boom years.

So, what precisely, are we waiting for? Are we waiting to be told that prices are going up again? At which point we will all rush out to buy.

Like mindless sheep following each other around a field, waiting for one to make the first move, then the rest will follow. We all got such a fright last year, that we huddled up in the far corner of the field waiting for the sheepdog to herd us towards the gate.

Well the property gate is open again. Not quite as wide open as it had been before, but open nevertheless. So let’s get moving. You can never buy at the wrong time. However, you can be forced to sell at the wrong time, for you.

Link

[xman]

Well that steaming pile of excrement is going straight into the “what they said, when they said it” time capsule.

Mindless sheep indeed.

Isabel Morton - yet another canny mcsavvy fwit. Go and stand in the corner with the rest of them.

[conor_mc]

For the majority of us who have owned our property for three years or more, we can relax in the knowledge that we were lucky enough to have benefited greatly from the boom years.

How?

You own a house three or more years - big whooppeee-doo! Guess what, three or more years ago you owned a house. Today, you own the same house… where’s the great benefit unless it came with a money tree out back?

Mindless regurgitated cliche’s.

[FB2]

I liked, “If you didn’t, for whatever reason, buy the property which turned out to be a winner, then you are a failure.”

Funny coz I hadn’t spotted but I’m obviously not savvy or canny enough to notice such things. Silly me for enjoying a very low rent in a central location and putting a nice wedge of cash away.

[magoko101]

bought a property at the height of the boom, in early 2006 and, without having since added value

I love that bit… get out and build an extension you lazy sods… add value. Were thinking you were buying a home? Of course not… you were buying a building site so get cracking

[spqr64]

It must take long sleepless nights to think up this amount of crap, or do they get classes in it?

[KD1]

Look lads she’s an interior designer. Enough said.

[Duplex]

Stirring stuff. A clarion call to the huddled buying masses to rise and join battle with economic reality one more time. Arise and follow Isabel !

https://www.es.flinders.edu.au/~mattom/science+society/lectures/illustrations/lecture21/frenchrevolution.jpg

[daltonr]

The only people who are likely to suffer are those who bought a property at the height of the boom, in early 2006 and, without having since added value (extending or renovating), are now being forced to sell.

This is a remarkably narrow view of suffering. Unless you actually are in Negative Equity and HAVE TO sell, then you’re not suffering.

Nevermind the young couples who stretched possibly beyond their means to buy a starter home (not even a dream home) and then faced interest rates that doubled.

Nevermind people who “got on the ladder” by buying a home miles from anywhere, and have to suffer up to three hours a day of commuting. And who now are facing the reality that their home is falling in value faster than the dream home they hoped to trade up to.

For the majority of us who have owned our property for three years or more, we can relax in the knowledge that we were lucky enough to have benefited greatly from the boom years.

I’m all right Jack, so everybody else must be too.
Even those who bought 3 years ago are looking at their property being worth little more, perhaps even a little less than they bought it for. Let’s hope they didn’t release too much equity to pay for a holiday, a car or a trip to BT.

Well the property gate is open again. Not quite as wide open as it had been before, but open nevertheless. So let’s get moving. You can never buy at the wrong time. However, you can be forced to sell at the wrong time, for you.

She treats us to an article about how timing is important (people who bought years ago are ok, people who bought recently could be in trouble. And then tells us that there’s NEVER a wrong time to buy.

Let’s be clear. For the vast majority of people
2006 was a WRONG TIME TO BUY.
2007 was A WRONG TIME TO BUY.
2008 is A WRONG TIME TO BUY.

2005 and 2004 might even have been wrong times to BUY depending on the scenario.

Any time that interest on your mortgage costs more than the rent for an equivalent property, and prices aren’t increasing is A WRONG TIME TO BUY.

This isn’t benefit of hindsight, knowing in retrospect when is a good time and a bad time to buy. This is simple maths that you can use TODAY to know if buying a particular property makes sense.

Sometimes I wonder if someone threw all of Irelands common sense into the back of a Hi-Ace and headed off to Italy to the World Cup in 1990, and all the common sense got stolen somewhere outside Genoa.

-Rd

[PopeBuckfastXVI]

“due to the recent slowdown in capital appreciation”

Yep you read that correctly: slowdown.

Ireland in 2008 has a slowdown in capital appreciation, just like a rainstorm is a slowdown in evaporation.

[gaius]

https://images.jupiterimages.com/common/detail/49/77/23357749.jpg

[magoko101]

Not only is it the wrong time to buy a property… it seems like it’s the wrong time to buy the Irish Times too…
It still annoys me how they manage to acquire the ireland.com domain…

[geckko]

Given that interest costs over the last 3 years have been higher than rental yields we can also say that

2005 was the wrong time to buy and even possibly
2004 was the wrong time to buy.

2003 and 2002 might not have been the wrong time to buy, but the jury is still well and truly out.

My opinion is that 2001 was probably the very last time it wasn’t the wrong time to buy.

So it is pretty much; this century has been the wrong time to buy.

[daltonr]

Or to put it another way.
In the next year or two there will be children making their communion, who were conceived in houses that were bought at the wrong time.

-Rd

[mr_anderson]

It all depends upon the area and type of accomodation.
4-5 bed detached house in a good dublin location, you will probably be fine (so far !) if you bought before 2004.
1 - 2 bed apt in the middle of nowhere … thats a different story altogether.

[Proximo]

So buying a property when prices are falling… is never the wrong thing to do ???

So, what precisely, are we waiting for? Are we waiting to be told that prices are going up again? At which point we will all rush out to buy.

We’re waiting for prices to fall Isabel. You see Isabel, if I don’t buy now, and wait even a year, I’ll get a 10%(Minimum) discount on the biggest fuckin purchase of my life…

Muppet.

So let’s get moving. You can never buy at the wrong time.

@xman

**steaming pile of excrement **

Precisely Xman.

[geckko]

@mr_anderson

It all depends upon the area and type of accomodation.
4-5 bed detached house in a good dublin location, you will probably be fine (so far !) if you bought before 2004.
1 - 2 bed apt in the middle of nowhere … thats a different story altogether.

Wanna bet? I have been all over the Sth Dublin market (in “good locations”) for a year. There are still mugs out there who will cough up, but there are as many place (detached 4+) that have dropped and dropped back to observable 2003-2004 prices and are still anguishing.

[xman]

The only people who are likely to suffer are those who bought a property at the height of the boom, in early 2006 and, without having since added value (extending or renovating)

Hi there Isabel,

I bought a brand new ‘luxury’ apartment which was completed in 2006.

After a little while it seemed a bit poky, but when I tried to extend it by going sideways knocking through a wall - the next door neighbours complained that I had “ruined” their living room.

Some people…

Then I tried to go up by knocking a hole in the ceiling and lo and behold, more complaints. Apparently I “ruined” someone’s bedroom.

NIMBYs!

So I decided to put in a games room by digging out a basement. Well, no sooner had I got the jackhammer started, I got a visit from yet* another *angry person claiming I was “destroying” their ceiling!

Talk about the neighbours from hell…

Undeterred I tried to go out by building a sunny, light filled conservatory - like people do on the telly. Unfortunately I live on the fourth floor and the Management Company threatened me with a court order when I started erecting the scaffolding to build my dream conservatory.

Fascists.

So then I got a builder in to renovate and he looked around and asked me “So what d’ya want me ta renovate? Shure 'tis all brand new like”

Apparently my ‘luxury’ apartment is now worth over 20% less than what we paid for it, and we’re looking to start a family next year, so we’re anxious to clamber up another rung on this magical property ladder I’ve read so much about in newspapers like yours.

Clearly this ‘negative equity’ I now find myself in is the result of my own laziness for not renovating or extending my shiny shoebox, but what should I do?

Please do tell, Isabel.

Confused in Commuterland.

[Proximo]

You simply must get an Innteeriour Dezoigner in this situation … !

[spqr64]

Dear Confused in Commuterland,

thankyou for you lovely letter asking for my advise and its plain to see you really need it dont you cherub.

The advise I have for you is simple, when you purchased you should have bought a house not a lighthouse/pidgeon loft.

Now dear repeat after me “must try harder next time”

“ah another satisfied customer”