I'd see (9) and (10) and possibly also (4) as recreational spending, rather than maintenance, but then I like gardening and DIY and for me, it's a big incentive to move out of an apartment.

Likewise. Sounds like the chores some people stuck in apartments dream of.

Also, fixing your electric gates? Are your diamond loafers too tight, as well?

You paid for your neighbour's tree pruning?

The trees were blocking the light coming into my garden.

Damn management company said they had no money to do it.

I'm inclined to agree with Landlord on this one. There was a good discussion about the cost of property maintenance last year and it really needs to be properly considered when buying.

Link to the Pin thread.

If we drop out of the Euro the knock on effects will be catastrophic on the region and us. I expect plenty of MNC's will wind down for business reasons and plenty for currency reasons.

I mean, the poster above who thinks real house prices won't implode is living in lalaland; interest rates will be back to well over 15%. As bearish as I've been on housing, the last thing I want to see is a return to the Punt and house prices utterly destroyed, it wouldn't be fun for anyone.

See, that's the problem if you only look at raw stats and were not around to see the huge gap between the stats and real life. The real unemployment rate never went below 15% during that period and mass emigration was *the* fact of life during the whole period. Not quite as bad as the 1950s' but some years it got pretty close. During that time people may have got their colour tvs , vcrs and microwaves but if your after tax income was little different between 1979 and 1993 you did not feel much better off.

There was a very big and real increase in net disposable income between 1965 and 1973, a bit of a bump in the late 70's, but from then on there was little real movement in net disposable income and real standard of living between the late 70's and the mid 90's. I saw little material difference between 1980 and 1994 but the change between 1994 and 1998 was startling. The late 90's was the first time since the early 70's when it was very noticeable the most peoples standard of living was materially improving in a very obvious way.

The stats may have showed improvement but in real life any improvement was not that noticeable. One per cent p.a (it was nowhere near 4% for most folk) does add up over a decade but to those living it any improvement was barely perceptible.

Not very often I disagree with you JMC, but on this one, I would put the raise in standards of living as on the increase more from '88/'89 onwards. It was in '88 or so that the beginnings of the boom building began happening, and a lot of architects, planners etc began coming back to Ireland from the UK - which at that time was in the heights of its housing bubble. I put my 10% meagerly deposit on my first house in '87 and finished buying it in '88 by which time house prices had appreciated some!

Along with the house price increases, came horrible mortgage interest increases. My intial mortgage offer had a rate of 7.5%, my first repayment had a rate of closer to 16%. In those days, the government had control of interest rates, and they were used to keep a lid on the market.

For me, the real changes in lifestyle and disposable income became evident between Italia '90 and Riverdance - it was a lot to do with confidence.

This is anectodal so may be disounted by most but I think the bounce we may have seen in scd might be more seasonal than sustainable- I think pent up demand was driving too.

I have noticed a few sale agreed falling through for houses which I at least thought were reasonably priced and in very sought after areas traditionally so maybe the enthusiasm for house purchases in 2012 is waning a bit.

2 house spring to mind both with their own threads already are 35 woodside drive , churchtown and lambourne wood in cabinteely.

A few more of these and I think scd bounce may indeed be that of a feline nature

2 houses in Dublin 18 dropped in price in the last wk
Or so that I remember, Rushbrook on Torquay rd and the one on Springfield park. Not a huge bounce in the mkt. Rushbrook still very overpriced IMO by the way

Just wondering, those who feel prices are still falling in SCD, any thoughts on how far they have yet to go?

The question poised refers to the last 12 months

That could be interpreted as are prices higher now than 12 months ago in SCD?
Under that interpretation the answer is certainly not.

Furthermore most of you will have read Derek Bawn's excellent book and one point he makes in it is that the market will have turned when there has been
six months of consecutive price rises AND an increase in volume sold

so far there has been two months of CSO Dublin house prices rises

Now 3 months of rises.
http://www.cso.ie/en/media/csoie/releas ... ay2012.pdf

We'd have to wait for stamp duty returns to see the volume of transactions figures, and even then you'd only have figures for Dublin as a whole.

If national mortgage lending volumes are anything to go by, these are still falling
http://www.ibf.ie/Libraries/Research_St ... .sflb.ashx

The Dublin increase in prices, despite mortgage lending dropping by value and volume, shows less stock available is artificially driving up prices.

What, if anything is likely to get stock back on the market? Debt forgiveness? Banks loaning? The bailiffs?

Or is this going to be a long-term feature of the market going forward...

1 - do it myself.
2 - do it myself, though I did have to pay 60 euro to get some high trees topped. Mind you, I live in a field surrounded by high hedges. Not a typical house.
4 - do it myself.
7 - doesn't require it/do it myself.
8 - do it myself (the advantage of a bungalow).

Most of what you say also has to be done for apartments. The cost is typically higher than for a house. Divided up by the number of apartments it is less. There is no element of choice, though, for the individual apartment owner. If it is decided that a window cleaning company with cherry-picker is brought in by the management company, then everyone pays. These are therefore discretionary costs. I pay the same amount for waste disposal for my house as I did for my apartment.