I spent last night and part of today reading Derek Brawn's, Ireland's House Party, which makes for pretty scaring reading with regards to where the Irish housing market is heading - at this stage 40-60% drop in prices, 50% of mortgaged homes in negative equity, and years and years to recover. I've just finished the first full draft of our report on the property crisis in Ireland and, as someone in negative equity, researching it has been a sombre experience. Brawn has a nice description of estate agents (which he was very briefly, and before that an investment banker - so he has a good pedigree in fleecing people):'Estate agents treat their fellow-countrymen like sheep, to be sheared for all the money they can possibly extract from them, just so they can claim to be a home-owner.'
The subtitle to his book is, 'What estate agents don't want you to know.' He makes a pretty convincing case as to how they tried to pull the wool over people's eyes for as long as possible to keep the party bubbling along. And we all kept dancing like lambs to the slaughter.
1 comment:
Rob - Thanks for sharing. In some ways, that's exactly what's happened in the U.S. housing market in some areas, too. It is sobering.
Post a Comment