Sogy

I remember some time ago some Eas showing the highest current offer for a specific property on their sites...

A nice site! At last, PropertyNews has a competitor. The map feature is handy, as is the number of day a property has been listed on the site. Statistics would be useful, but so would also be marking price reductions on individual properties. Don't care about videos or advertising (but no pop-ups please!) A forum would be good, if not censored (ahem, overmoderated). Would also suggest you to look for new ideas at my favourite American site (I used to live there): http://www.fmrealty.com/

So much for the "housing shortage"... http://www.mortgagesforbusiness.co.uk/corp...rticleid/29268/

They don't affect the market, they affect the asking price. Just like a year ago houses were put on sale at 100K, sold at 130K - now they will be put on sale at 200K, but sold at... whatever we guys are willing to pay for these dog kennels. There's no one to buy them now, but us. Padraigs, Seans and Seamuses from Baille Atha Cliath (the "smart" "investors" of the bubble-time) are gone for good. I mean, they are not going to buy any more, but sell what they have bought they will! (except for the smarter ones, who have sold already)

Ah, the realtors have suddenly regained their ethics! Look at http://www.pooler-watson.com/ - then click on News on the left. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "New "fixed price" campaign is launched 30/08/2007 Watson Property Sales has launched a new campaign called "The price you see is the price you pay". Similar to Ebay's "Buy it Now" we are now offering our clients the opportunity to market their properties at a "fixed price". This new way of marketing property should be of particular interest to the cautious first time buyer who does not want to engage in bidding wars and simply wants to make a purchase which is within their budget." ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- So they are not going to drive dozens of people like cattle during showings? Nor stoke the bidding madness and abet gazumping? Indeed, now they may have to... work (this will include convincing the sellers that yesteryear's prices are gone for good)

Ah, they are so cute! Especially the ones in Belfast. Alas, I may not have enough imagination...

For me, just one fact was enough: a highly unusual rent-vs-mortgage inversion.

Sticks, yes (but they normally survive hurricanes, unlike the trailers, aka caravans). Insulation, no. That's aplenty. Don't forget, that they have to run air conditioning all day long in NC. And I'd choose one of those cheapo houses any day over the dreary British terraces.

I have sold my lovely, if somewhat dilapidated, house in Durham, North Carolina in May. The city is a wee bit smaller than Belfast (pop. ca. 215,000), but has way more well-paying jobs (such as electronics, IT, and biotech). The house was detached, in a fairly good neighbourhood, sitting on over a quarter of an acre of land, had 4 bedrooms and 3 baths (I mean baths, not just toilets or shower cubicles). The asking price was $175K, and I actually got $157K for it. I think I was darn smart and lucky, given the later developments! Guess what £80K can buy me here?

It isn't my joke! This is the summary of the stuff I've been told by my (home-owning) friends and colleagues during the last couple of years... They surely expect the feast to go on and on and on.

They are not! We're just "catching up" - with San Francisco (London is passed by now). And there's a real shortage of housing here! Millions of Poles are coming here for good, each of them bying or renting a large house (no, they don't live 3 or 4 to a room), and then there's the prodigal native sons and daughters, returning in droves... In other words, we can expect the prices to double in the next... four months.

Thanks for the warm welcome! I see you are all merry and kind folks here

Hello everyone! Just found this excellent forum & thread, joined, and will certainly speak out! We have lived in NI just over 2 years (moved from the States), and by the time we've got through the lunatic "money laundering" barriers and got a bank account etc. things have already got out of hand in the housing market here. So we are still renting (the landlord acting as a veritable charity, collecting half his mortgage interest in rent, at best). As much as I sympathise with my friends, happy about the windfall they had (if only on paper) in the last year and a half, I think we deserve a place of our own as well, and at a realistic price. As to the "smart" investors from down South, who stoked this unprecedented bubble with cheaply borrowed German money - who would really feel sorry for them?