TALKING PROPERTY:One morning a few weeks ago, I suspected that I might be hallucinating as I passed four removals trucks in as many minutes while driving from Sandycove to Monkstown in south Co Dublin.
It was almost like the old days, I thought to myself, as I slowed down to examine the activity outside one house. The sun was shining, the lads were joking as they manhandled a large sofa into a truck and, for a brief moment, one could have been fooled into believing that life had returned to some kind of normality.
It was the last week of August and still within the summer months, which are traditionally the time when families move as they like to be settled into their new homes before their children return to school.
I had checked for any signs (literally) of an explanation but of the four properties only one had an estate agents “sold” board on display. The other three houses had no signs. Were these rental people on the move?
It was time to contact a few of my friends in the removal business to get an update on the situation. George Stevens, of GA Stevens & Son, Bray, Co Wicklow, agreed that July and August had been busy months but said that “it was a bit of a spurt, but we can now see it easing back down again”.
“Some houses are selling but I’d say 80 per cent of all those we move are going into rental properties. For whatever reason, they haven’t bought. They’re just going to sit back for a while and wait.”
Some had bought before prices started to rocket and now planned to trade up, but others were selling to free themselves of the stresses associated with servicing a mortgage, fear of interest-rate hikes and uncertainty about job security. They wanted to be able to move area or to emigrate quickly if required and didn’t want to be lumbered with a property, which might take months to sell.“We cleared out one house over two years ago, but the sold sign appeared there only very recently,” said Stevens.
“Others are downsizing after years in the same home and they say that they’re not going to sit around for the next 10 or 15 years waiting for the market to go up again, if it ever does. They would be 75 or 80 by then and they want to downsize now and enjoy a bit of their lives while they still can.”
Stevens recently moved a man who was retiring and returning to England having just sold his house for considerably less than he had paid for it more than a decade ago when he arrived in Ireland. Not all tales are unhappy ones however.
“There’s quite a bit of renovating going on now and people move their stuff into storage with us, while the work is being done. They have €50,000 or even €150,000 put aside, which they’ll use on doing a job on their house.
“They don’t want the hassle of the getting involved in selling and buying again, if they can avoid it, so they rent for six months or so, while they do work on their own place.”
McCann Removals in Durrow, Co Laois, has a customer base from all over the country but specialises in removals between Ireland and the UK, where Tom McCann once lived and worked before returning home with his family about 20 years ago.
“We’re still moving people back to England, people who had returned home during the good times but have to go back now because there are no jobs here,” he said.
McCann mentioned examples of people who had to sell now for whatever they could get before leaving Ireland again – this time for good.
“Some money is still coming back into the country but it is less than before. Although older people can now afford to buy a little retirement place here, they find everyday living expenses too high and they have no faith in the Irish health system, which is an important issue for them,” he said.
“In the 1980s recession, I remember looking for work here and there was nothing – yet nobody owed big money. But now we’re in a bad recession and everybody is up to their ears in debt. There’s no coming out of it for a long, long time.”
For some, however, things are going well, as one letting agent based in south Dublin told me.
“Rentals are hail and hearty and we’ve had a busy summer with people who’ve sold their homes and intend to rent for a few years, and a few coming home from abroad.
“For the first time ever, we have had requests from those who, after last winter, want to move to a well-insulated house, in order to reduce their heating bills. People are prepared to spend between €3,000 and €5,000 per month to get the right house in this area but stocks are low.”
Why, I wondered? Because landlords are under pressure to sell their investment properties to repay their debts.
Here we go again. Perhaps we are all hallucinating.
Isabel Morton is a property consultant
