Public Emotional response to house market
0 voters
Previous polls: September 2007 | January 2008 | April 2008 | July 2008 | September 2008 | January 2009
Based on general conversations with your friends, colleagues, or intuition what do you reckon the public mood towards the house market is?
Based on a conversation I heard yesterday on Radio 1 a woman was complaining that people can’t sell their houses as there is no market so I think we’ll be stuck at fear for a bit longer yet. Q4 after the second budget might jog a few pebbles loose that might cause the avalance.
Commentators thought the Irish had an affinity for property, that’s nothing compared to the abhorance as to be seen as uncanny. The lack of savvyness is not crystalised till the loss (or reduced level of profit) is taken. I think there is a difference between denial and lack of acceptance that will draw this one out.
I’m torn between Denial and Hope which might be an expression of where we are with regard to dead cat bounce / bull trap.
I’m with TUG on this one. I voted for denial as I still think this is the dominant feeling but there are glimpses of both fear and hope. We’ve been watching this for a long time now and the progress is painfully slow. We’re in for the long haul…
I think we are stuck between fear and desperation as the people who bought over the last few years realise they are stuck there forever and the desperation of cannys who bought to flip in new estates will suddenly find the developer has dropped the price by 30% just to start with or people are locked/ being forced into completing for properties no longer valued at 50% of what they paid.
The April budget will do more than shake a few pebbles loose it will along with unemployment increasing and the economy shrinking give the push onto the next stages of the cycle where we will move quickly into panic for a couple or three months followed by capitulation which will be a long drawn out affair as even people who want to buy will have trouble raising finance.
I’d consider this to be a symptom of denial, there is a market just not at 2006 prices.
Still firmly in denial.
High house prices are good, international factors, not going to sell for less than its worth, property always goes up in the long term, spring selling season, rent is dead money, smart money waiting to pounce, gotta get on the ladder, Ryanair are flying there next year, blah blah blah.
Whole country is completely brainwashed. It’s like a cult. 3 years and the penny has not dropped with any of them, all still living in laaa-laa-land. At this stage I despair, I’m expecting to be still hearing the usual braindead bubblehead mantras from almost everyone I meet every single day for the next 20 years.
Utter catastrophe.
Totally agree. Good post.
I think spqr64 is a lot closer the truth than SW here. The denial is definitely softening. You only have to read the papers to see the tenor of commentary changing.
If the denial is softening then it’s in spite of the commentary in the papers IMO. All I can see is the same old VI’s drilling away just as SW outlined above.
+1 with Sidewinder
I’m not talking about the VIs or the meeja, I’m talking about the herd. And the vast majority of people refuse to change their minds, are still stuck firmly in 2006 mode and show few if any signs of changing.
Yeah, people are starting to adjust wild bling spending alright, some are even making an effort to repay some of their credit card and overdraft debts. But when it comes to property? Nah. No change at all. The mindset is too ingrained - it’s far too big a part of far too many people’s sense of self-worth, self-esteem, perceived position in society, perceived way to get ahead in society, and all that auld bollocks. They’ll cling to the property/bubble mantras to the day they die, penniless. That’s the mentality that has been drummed into the brains of a huge chunk of the population, over decades and decades.
Reminds me of that old Unionist battle-hymn:
“Here we stand. We can do no other”
I think it is denial still in the lead,with a bit of fear coming up on the inside. The fear needs to build before people start to drop prices,I just can’t see what is going to crack it unless unemployment really takes off.
Unemployment really is the key for me.With all that has been thrown at it,it really is astonishing to see house prices holding up as well as they have.But unless the cannies and investors receive a huge dose of pain that goes on for decades,they will never learn and the next bubble will be waiting to form.
Still in fear, I reckon.
The interest rate cuts are lessening the pain and drawing out the collapse. The Daftwatch chart show this quite clearly.
The crash is progressing slowly, Moved from denial to fear this time on the poll.
I believe we are in the fear stage. Alot of people are frightened to enter the market right now as they fear that prices will be much lower one year on from now. There may be still some denial on the sellers side re price drops but I think the market as a whole is in the fear stage.
good point, from the buyers point of view we are in Fear, but elsewhere people are somewhat stunned. people are still getting used to the fact that property had taken up so much of the economy over the last decade that they don’t know where to turn to.
depressingly i’m finding that a lot of people expect a return to 2006 as a recovery. i’m moving on.
There is a cohort of people in this country whose expectations are still high and bullish. Many are awaiting the big quick fix which they believe is just around the corner and a rapid ramp up in economic activity by early-mid 2010 at the very latest. Then everything is going to return to normal. Normal being a return to peak property prices, near full employment within a year of the rebound and a continual stream of cheap cash on tap.
I really find it hard to critise this mentality as the subtext to most mainstream media reports continually relay this message. The doctor has ordered an emergency dose of optomism as the cure-all for any economic ailment.
Many people don’t see themselves in denial because they haven’t been unduly impacted by the downturn. Normal service will resume and bubbles are just a part of normal service these days.
Summed up on a personal level: “I’m alright jack, and if a few losers have fallen off the cliff because of a bubble that’s their problem. These losers weren’t savvy enough.”
Denial. Without a shadow of a doubt. Remember it’s houses we’re talking about.
Houses of Cards