A work in progress here that all can contribute to…
Please feel free to add and amend definitions so that we can put a new sticky up somewhere more prominent in the future to help newbies!
Ta.
I’ll kick off with a couple:
EA: EA is a standard shorthand on the 'pin for “Estate Agent”. You know what one of those is, surely? You don’t? How on earth did you find this website???
VI: VI is a standard shorthand on the 'pin for “Vested Interest”. They have a stake in many industries obviously but in terms of Irish Property they represent most commonly Estate Agents, Web Portals like myhome & daft but also stretch to the ancillary retail industries that have fed off the property bubble.
Muffin: “Muffin” is a term of endearment on the 'pin that has mysteriously migrated from the forum over on weddingsonline.ie. And that explains that, muffin.
daftwatch: A website written by a Pin member that tracks the total number of properties for sale on daft.ie. Most pin members have an unhealthy obsession with its unstoppable graph of doom. The web address is daftwatch.atspace.com/
IPW: Short for Irish Property Watch, a web site developed by a pin member that list drops in asking prices on myhome.ie and daft.ie. A great resource for anyone who wants to show actual instances of drops in asking prices. The web address is irishpropertywatch.com/
OW: Short for OpenWindow, the guy who started the pin.
“The 'Pin”: short for the Property Pin, ie this web site.
Canny McSavvy: During 2007 several references were made in the media to “Canny” or “Savvy” buyers. In reality these buyers were usually the exact opposite but the term was used in an attempt to convince people to buy property. Canny McSavvy is a mythical Pin user who is often to be seen buying asbestos filled apartment blocks in Miami purely on the back of a gushing advertorial in a Sunday newspaper. Once Canny makes his purchase, his first act is usually to buy a BMW and henceforth call himself a “property entrepreneur”.
Addition by Green Bear:
Putting lipstick on a pig. The terms Canny, Savvy & Shrewd are estate agent speak for investors who pay over the odds for property and don’t have an iota. They usually pile into property bought off the plans in Longford, Cape Verde, Bulgaria and a whole load of other places off the beaten track, though most recently they have been spotted in Manhattan, New York due to the weak dollar. examples:
Smarty McBallsy: Similar in meaning to ‘Canny McSavvy’, a slightly newer variant. The well known journalist and highly regarded property market analyst Brendan O’Connor stated in his Sunday Independent column some time in 2007 that the ‘smart, ballsy guys’ were ‘buying up property right now’.
i think flipper can sometimes be defined in even more specific terms.
a flipper in this case is someone who buys off the plans and “flips” the owner ship of the gaff before he actually pays anything other than his original deposit. ie he never lives in the gaff , never rents it out etc.
like a doer-upper except he doesnt “do up” anything , doesnt actually contribute much to the situation really!
**
SD **is short for Stamp Duty
**gaff **means house shoebox is a small usually one bedroom apartment.
**specuvestor **is a combination of a speculator and investor - a derogatory term round these parts
Rabbit hutch : see shoebox. Tiny cramped apartment/house not really suitable for anyone to live in long-term, never mind a family.
**
WLQG - Well Located Quality Gaff. Not easily found in Ireland, this is a property that is well-built, good insulation, sound quality, materials etc. Won’t fall down in 6 months. Also well located to jobs, shops, schools, transport links and other amenities. Sizeable enough to make comfortable living for couples or familes. Almost none of these have been built in Ireland for a long time.
Ideal for an investor or a first time buyer
A tiny pile of crap in a bad location.
SubPrime Lender
A lender who will lend money to anyone at a high price in the hope that some will manage to pay, and the rest can be screwed in court.
SubPrime Borrower
The kind of borrower that a bank manger would never lend his own money to.
My house is my pension
I don’t understand pensions
My house is my biggest investment
I don’t understand investing
2Gaffs
A patriot, doing his part by buying his share of the empty houses that Ireland has produced. Only when every man woman and child does the same will the backlog be cleared.
