The first category of person has found life quite difficult over the past five years, particularly if they were prepared to postpone the decision to buy a house in the expectation that prices
would come down.
Given the growth we have seen in house prices in recent years, those who chose that course of action made a big mistake.
Even if prices were to go into reverse, it is highly unlikely that they would fall back to the levels that prevailed five years ago.
For those who decided to get on the ladder at whatever cost, the decision has proved to be a good one and they have done well in the sense that the asset they bought has continued to
appreciate in value. But while the doom merchants have been wrong for some time now, they have undoubtedly been given renewed hope by recent developments.
It has become obvious from anecdotal and real evidence over the past six months that the housing market has been losing some of its sparkle. Price growth has slowed quite sharply,
planning permissions and house registrations have been weakening and growth in mortgage credit has been slowing.
Many house vendors, be they private sellers or auctioneers, have been reluctant to admit in
public that they are finding it increasingly difficult to move houses, but in private many are admitting that this is indeed the case all over the country. The reported introduction of gimmicks to sell new houses really says it all.
In many ways you should not be terribly surprised that the market has been losing some of its sparkle in recent times. House prices are determined by the interaction of supply and
demand, and supply has been very strong in recent years, with more than 570,000 homes built since 2000.
Granted, some misdirected tax incentives have meant that not all of this supply has come on stream where the demand actually exists, but supply has nevertheless been strong.
On the other side of the equation, while demand has been driven strongly by the large number of young people in the household formation age group and considerable inward migration, the trend in interest rates over the past year has started to undermine the property appetite.
The strong level of supply and the sharp rise in interest rates are combining to push the market towards equilibrium.
There is no more potent weapon than interest rates to dampen a housing market.
European Central Bank rates have gone up by 1.5 per cent over the past 15 months, adding over €200 a month to the average mortgage.
The bad news for hard-stretched borrowers is that ECB rates could conceivably rise by another 0.75 per cent over 2007, and there are no guarantees at this stage that this would represent the top of the cycle. 2008 is another year.
A moderation in the housing market is actually desirable because a continuation of the sort of momentum that has characterised the market in recent times for another couple of years would almost certainly create a bubble that would most likely burst with great ferocity.
In many respects the market has displayed signs of insanity in recent years, and a semblance of sanity now would be no bad thing. It appears likely that 2006 will have represented the peak of the housing cycle both in terms of annual inflation and house completions.
Nationally, average house prices are likely to rise by no more than 5 per cent this year and
completions could fall back by over 10 per cent. Towards the end of the decade, average annual house price inflation is likely to be in the region of 3 to 4 per cent and completions should fall back to around 70,000. Such an outcome would undoubtedly qualify as a soft landing.
While it would not be a panacea for all the ills of aspiring house buyers, at least the rapid momentum of recent years appears to be moderating and, for the first time in a long time, buyers have some clout in the market.
They should use it, as they should in the mortgage market - competition is heating up among
mortgage providers and shopping around has never been more worthwhile.
Given the huge and inordinate dependence of the Irish economy and the Irish stock exchange on residential housing activity in terms of housing-related tax revenues, construction employment, consumer confidence and financial sector employment, a soft landing for the market is undoubtedly the optimum outcome, as a hard landing would cause seriously negative economic fallout.
With house completions set to moderate to about 85,000 in 2007, the value of housing built could decline by around €2billion, equivalent to little more than 1 per cent of GDP. With other areas of construction likely to take up any slack from weaker residential activity, the impact on employment in construction and on GDP growth is likely to be pretty minimal.
In the medium term, a gradual decline in housing construction would obviously take something off growth, but not enough to cause any dramatic slowdown. The economy would be able to take such a moderation in its stride as other areas of construction activity, such as commercial development and public infrastructure, look set to remain vibrant for some time to come. A hard landing would be much more difficult to withstand but thankfully is not the most likely outcome.
For policy-makers, the imperative is to ensure that there is a vibrant and productive parallel economy operating alongside the housing economy. It would be dangerous to believe that all of the positive economic and financial indicators thrown off by housing-related activity are
sustainable in the longer term. They are not.
Jim Power is chief economist with Friends First.
http://www.sbpost.ie/post/pages/p/story.aspx-qqqt=NEWS+FEATURES-qqqs=news-qqqid=21526-qqqx=1.asp
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