JoeDavola

Do you know anyone who runs businesses with high numbers of workers furloughed? Are these places all planning to let a percentage of people go in October when the furlough money runs out?

See that's why I still have my doubts that things will crash. Although naturally I hope they will. Will job losses even be enough. Would they have to be paired with a considerable reduction in credit availability. Until then it doesn't surprise me that as soon as the government gives the go ahead people will go back to fighting with eachother to spend 200K on that 2.5 bed 4 winds semi.

So it looks like the real economic fallout of all this won't become apparent until after October when the furlough ends. So if there are to be price drops one would assume the earliest they can happen is at some point in 2021, perhaps well into the year as these things tend to take time.

I think there's still a majority of the public who don't think there will be any negative economic effects when the lock-down ends; and the crash has been forgotten to the point where the "houses don't fall in price" idea that was there in 2006 is back again. I renewed my rent for another year, by summer 2021 I guess we'll have a good idea either way what's gonna happen.

The other unfortunate thing is that there is another house in the street on sale for several months before the lockdown hit that hasn't sold - on at 30% more than the 2013 price. My advice was exactly as you say - to put their house on at 10% under the other one in the street, but they consider that too much of a drop. What I really wanted to say was "put it on at 20% less and let the buyers bid it up to what it's actually worth" but I knew they'd not got for that. I'd like prices to become more sensible quickly, but I think lots of folk will just sit on their houses for months/years refusing to sell it 'for less than what it's worth'. I even saw plenty of this before the virus hit; places that had been on the market 3 or 6 months and hadn't sold, but they never think of dropping the price even a bit. I think ultimately they have no chance of selling and moving for another 2 years at least - gut instinct but I think it'll take that long for people to really accept significant drops in price (if indeed these drops do come along). In the meantime I think that unless a bank repo's your home (not a factor for most old folk who own theirs outright), I think many if not most will be stubborn and say "190K? don't insult me; this was worth 220K 6 months ago, I'm not selling it until I get what it's worth.....". My folks worked hard all their life and we were poor growing up, but I did the maths the other day and the total debt they had to take on over 3 house moves up the housing ladder to a house that is apparently worth almost a quarter mill now.....was £40K. All the rest was HPI gains and inflation.

Walked past the Victoria Square apartment block yesterday which is now condemned - a sign outside basically saying "this is an active building site, do not enter". Victoria Square, Library Square (see below, last we heard it may need to be demolished), the (IMO) very poor finish of Obel and the 35m2 shoe boxes at The Gallery at Dublin Road that almost didn't planning permission IIRC because they're so small......lets hope valuable space isn't wasted on such poor quality housing again. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-50496511

You have to go down to their offices beside BT tower and pay £5 per property search. It's an eye opener. I've seen examples over over 50% drops logged pre and post crash. Eye watering sums of money lost.

My big concern is really how much of an economy do we have here in NI that isn't in some way reliant on public money? Public sector jobs, invest NI propping up wages, 'private' sector jobs that are propped up by public sector contracts (and often times Invest NI money as well!) I don't see how tourist numbers or overseas student numbers will recover for at least a year or two, and surely that'll have a big impact too.

My elderly parents had been wanting to sell their house (thankfully bought at the bottom of the market in 2012) to downsize. Obviously this has put a stop to all that. My recommendation to them, and I'd be interested to know what the posters here think, would be to put their house on the market as soon as things return to 'normal' and hope that there's a small burst of pent-up demand and the house sells. The reason I say this is that I can't see an scenario where, in the say 2 years after the lockdown lifts and the scale of the economic damage is fully realized, that would see Belfast houses rise significantly in price. They'll stay stable or over those two years the message will get out that sentiment has changed and we'll see a drop in price. My fear is that they won't be able to sell at all (they still seem to want to a significant profit over their 2013 price) and they'll still be there in a few years when their health has declined to a point where they find upkeep of the house to be more of a challenge.

Well I think it's true that there will be a longer period of reduced demand for certain things even after the lockdown is lifted. I also agree that NI never saw anything remotely resembling 'austerity' considering how much public money NI gets.

So by extension, any crash or lack of hinges solely on the availability of cheap credit?

......I say 'NI', I really mean Belfast; apologies. As someone who has lived and worked in the city center for a decade my opinions are somewhat Belfast-centric!

Well, to take the pessimistic (or should that be realistic?) view - it seems to me that a huge part of the NI 'recovery' since 2012 has been reliant on: 1. Tourism - hundreds and hundreds of new rooms via new hotels/airbnb's compared to 2012. The George Best hotel looked like it was dead even before this virus despite prime location. 2. Students/student accommodation - the expensive block on Botanic for overseas students, the new campus over by cathedral quarter. 3. Tech jobs heavily backed by invest NI money ....have I missed anything else? It's not inconceivable that each of these could take a hit because of this virus.

Yes I think that's a real possibility - that city center apartments will see big price drops but houses in suburbia (as overpriced as I think they are), might not drop much.

Doccyboy's name popped to mind too as I read through the reunion posts, maybe we'll see a few old faces (or usernames) return over the coming months.