Does misery love company? The massive turnout for the IAVI president's lunch on the Friday of a bank holiday weekend suggests so: over 600 estate agents came to the annual shindig in the Burlington Hotel, when they might have been tempted to make an early getaway.
If not exactly miserable, most agents are now speaking openly about the stagnant state of the market, which is as bad as any younger agents have ever seen.
They reckon that, as long as the public thinks prices may fall further, they'll be slow to buy. That, plus perhaps 9 per cent stamp duty - a "tax on hope" said president Robert Ganly - are the main reasons they believe the market is stalling.
And while it wasn't obvious how speaker Gerry Robinson's no-nonsense management advice might help agents, his entertaining address cheered everyone up.
The next big event on the IAVI calendar will be its new slimmed-down annual get-together.
In past years this has been a fun three-day event with golf and dancing thrown in. Next year, members can look forward to a one-day event in the Royal Marine Hotel in Dún Laoghaire at the end of January. Chilly.
:quality(70)/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/irishtimes/6BDEAESQEJH4BHNFRSVZH3W4TM.png)