Thanks guys. Now that you mention it, there was an estate where I grew up that was half-built and suddenly mothballed at around that time. Like markf909, we had a few years of playing in the abandoned foundations, twas great for making huts and having fires and when we got to about 13 meeting up with girls IIRC building didn’t restart there until about 1989. And when completed a 3-bed detached house had a price tag of £26K
I’m just a bit amazed that it seems to have completely dropped out of the collective memory. How many years have we been talking about various housing bubbles, and I’ve never come across this one before?
When I was 13, I lived on an unfinished estate… About 1992, because it was the European Championships in Sweden that year, it was all finished off about five years later… Just in time for the real BOOM!
The sweeties for all was £1000 new house grant, House prices were around £20,000 in 1977, This stimulated demand, and the price of new houses rose quickly by the value of the grant
Inflation at the time was in double digits.
Sidey, it is amazing how everyone has forgotten that we have lived through a previous housing bust.
I certainly remember it all. My folks bought into an estate in 1983 for IR£25k.
By 1987, our next door neighbours had done a jingle mail and high tailed it to Canada never to be seen again.
The house was eventually sold by the bank in 1989 for IR£19k (house prices never go down etc).
The rest of the estate was only finished in the early 90’s by some other builder.
I’m sure after this housing crash, we’ll never repeat the mistakes again…
This graph extends the range back to 1970 so we have nearly 40 years of figures. You can see from the graph that the bubble starting in 1996 went on so long that the majority of people (including those paid to know better) did not think it was a bubble but thought that a new law of economics was in effect.
Whilst I think arguments based on yield or income multiples are more scientific, graphs such as this have great persuasive power. There’s a lot out there that think the current situation is a mere blip and with sufficient government support, things can take off again. This is the philosophy behind the developer bailout aspect of NAMA. Prop them up until things get going again.
Was talking Nama with the aul fella last week and he mentioned the previous house price crash.
His recollection was that Patrick Gallagher going bust was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
That ring any bells with anyone here? Is history repeating itself down the Four Courts at the moment? Bear in mind that Gallagher had a bank that went bust as well …
(Gallagher … Carroll’s … Camel … is the cosmos trying to let us know that our economy is going up in smoke again?)
IIRC building didn’t restart there until about 1989. And when completed a 3-bed detached house had a price tag of £26K 
