Being called. Fine. Economically - An income of average Joe dropped pretty hard. Before recession, government raised minimal wage from E7.65 p/h to 8.65 (period of 2007 lasted to 2010). Now its back again to its pre 2007 lvl of 7.65. (which in case of working 40 hours weekly its drop of around 12%) Since 2010 some are asked to work 10% for Free. Yep. Thats an extra 4 hours (at least that was the case in the company where i've been working) If lets say an average Joe is working in Grocery store, 40 hours a week for minimal wage of now 7.65 and yet is afraid of loosing his job in current economical conditions he will agree to that 10%. His true drop of income wont be 12% but 7.65 - 10% = 6.88 thats around 170 euro weekly loss (current 232 AUSD). (around 9k euro a year) People are (especially those with mortgages) literally grabbing whatever they can. In big shortcut, population has to work more, for less. Price of Petrol, jumped in a week from 1.15 per liter to around 1.40. Prices of properties dropped significantly. Previously, houses around my area (south Dublin) might go for as much as 1.1 - 1.2 milion, now around 300 - 400k, ( 3/4 bed ) sometimes even less. Prices of food jumped and prices of most services lowered significantly. Biggest downgrade according to stats was in Building and Hotel/tourism sector. Lots of developers simply didn't make it going bankrupt, and hotel industry had to drop room prices by more or less 70%. Comparing to neighbor countries Ireland has almost no production whats so ever. This whole period of so called "Celtic Tiger" crap was just one big balloon, its hard to make a growth by sorting papers. Now, if You'll go to Dublin's city center there are heck loads of points where you can change your gold into cash. And so far I haven't seen many folks around those places, probably due to me ignoring them
Thanks for the great thread Aengrod. Very interesting. I found this news snippet very interesting. "Translated to US size difference terms, Ireland has expanded their Euro money supply the equivalent of the US doing so by $12 trillion, all in the space of three months on the Emerald Isle centered in Dublin." Source: http://goldsilver.com/news/excellent-read-china-plays-europe-card-jim-willie-cb/ Found this article to be one of the most interesting Ive read for months. It also helps explain downward pressure on gold.
IT WILL NOT! It's different here... Aussie John said so and he wouldn't lie! [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mor10bQYiB8[/youtube] Oh... wait.
http://www.thepropertypin.com/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=7146&sid=80822288eb95d70879e7b73aaefba67c A drop from 7.5 million to now 2.25 million. I cant believe I'm going to be able to buy a harbourside mansion in Sydney in a few years. And I know who my other neighbours will be
Same story in the US - you really need to witness it in person for the gravity of the situation to hit you.
Are all properties really badly hit? Or is it affecting more the mid to higher end properties a lot more?
That was a good read. Quite refreshing. Things are slowly dawning on me more and more, as the days and weeks go by. It's so easy to live in complacency. Especially here in Australia, where everythings always gonna be alright. She'll be right, eh mate? But the more I read throughout here, and the more utube videos i watch, both my wife and I are slowly seeing our safe little world cracking at the edges. We're actually starting to accept as reality, the big changes that are looming on the horizon. That change is coming, really, and we just happen to be lucky enough to be seeing it. Not everyone is. We talk about it with friends, and many don't see it still. And that could just as easily be us. Complacent. We're coming over to the side of pro-activity, instead of only being able to react when the shtf. I hope we all survive.
My advice.... don't try to convince others. Just explain the facts and let them do their own research.
Anyone interested in Ireland should try reading some of the stories here. There's some pretty amazing stuff. http://www.askaboutmoney.com/forumdisplay.php?f=93
Harvey Organ wrote: What he wrote is truth. Me and most of my friends got all our Euros outta acc last year, leaving only min to keep it running. (For weekly wages payment etc)
Six (6) months down the track, would you care to give us an update on what is happening in Ireland and how you see it all play out?
Yeah, good idea, just one thing. Inflation. Since I'm here on SS I've been checking prices in my grocery store more closely. While some products didn't jump in price significantly during those 6 moths (around 5% - 7%) others went as much as (25% - 30% or more). Ofc we still have another 6 months to go till the end of year. The graph above tells us 3%. Well dear sir - BS. Now bear in mind that I'm talking about everyday food prices, (or grocery stores around me are in some sort of conspiration can't tell You much about RE, but seeing as houses down the road are being bought and sold, market ain't dead Dunno the price tho. I'll get some info later on during the week. Next thing is, while going to work in City, everyday I see more and more posters encouraging folks to fight, against government, bankers etc. Other thing being - recent actions by some entities (forgot the name but read it in the paper ) encouraging people not to pay mortgage, for the bankers being bailed-out by common folks are increasing rates on their payments, sometimes as much as few times in a month. Apparently some 20k+ ppl joined it, which in case such a small country as Ireland is, is fairly good number. Long story short, country is being squeezed dry from little wealth it still has.
AusPM, I must go into bat for Aussie Home Loans here, At least on John's specific claim. Whilst I agree that there were SOME loans at 95% and 100% and even some at 110% of valuation, that was NOT the norm. And by far the most of those loans were made by the brokers and secondary lenders like Aussie Home Loans. In the Australian banking industry, the basic rules are much the same across the board, they have been so for generations. value the property at a CONSERVATIVE figure Check the employment/income record of the applicant. Check his credit record. Check his other liabilities. Find out where the deposit came from, was it borrowed? etc. all basic common sense stuff. If you go across the Pacific, the USA had a law passed in 1979. It was called the 'Community Reinvestment Act' and that mandated that a Bank that operated a Bank branch in a suburb, MUST make loans to the customers in that suburb. No matter what the answers to the above questioins may be. THAT meant that an UNemployed 'African-American' could go to the Bank and ask for a loan to buy a house in that sometimes run down suburb. He may well be incapacitated and unable to work, or had virtually NIL earning power anyway. The banks fought the thing in the courts and lost, so they made the laons and on-sold the thing to others silly enough to buy them. Thus was born, "Sub-Prime" and "Junk Loans'. The rest is history. We do NOT have such an Act over here. OC
Yes, it's absolutely more safer. Nothing will happen to the Australian property market. It'll weather the coming storm. Houses won't be lost. Lives won't be ruined by crippling debt they can't walk away from. She'll be right mate.
