It’s all about timing in life. Being in the right place at the right time and that boils down to a fair amount of luck too. If you take the teaching profession. Primary for example. A few years ago you could take early retirement after doing your 30 years and walk away with a 6 figure lump sum. Your pension would have been calculated on your last 3 years gross salary which would have slided up to 60k pa and you would be paid a pension in perpetuity which would be the same as an entry level teachers annual salary now. Those days are gone. Public sector pensions must cost this country an absolute fortune.
For anyone born in the 80s and early 90s it has been a rough couple of decades and this decade could prove to be the toughest since before we joined EU. This pandemic really has the potential to knock us back without the release valve of emigration. Yes there has been more immaterilism, foreign holidays, 2 cars in the drive way but most of it is a false economy and predicated on cheap debt.
For anyone who bought a house in 06/07 they probably bought at the height of the market and fell into massive negative equity. A spouse could have lost a job and they would have slowly rebuilt their lives and got on with it while the government of the day converted 100bn of private banking debt into sovereign debt. Fast forward 12 years and the situation is about to get a lot worse. More people will lose their jobs and their businesses that they have worked so hard for. It wont have been their fault on either occasion. What should be a once in a generation national crises is about to become 2 seismic hits in quick succession. I’m not sure there is enough urgency or questions being asked but I’d sure like to hear them pretty soon.
In 1990 I think Albert Reynolds was minister for finance. Standard rate of tax was around 30% and higher rate was over 50%. Not sure what entry or cut off points were though. They would have to be adjusted for indexation as well or CPI.
Never realised they went that high. We could be heading back to high tax rates for individuals of over 50%. I think that’s the way it’s going to go. They wont go near the big multinationals and by the time we come out of lockdown indigenous businesses particularly in the area of services etc will be most hurt.
I was talking to a fella this morning who has his own estate agents. He says he had stuff ready to go up on daft soon but owners have instructed him to stall until they see what happens next with the virus. He was thinking it’ll be a quiet 2020 and expects people to try sell in 2021 instead. So definitely I think supply will be affected more than usual in short-medium term which might keep prices artificially ok.
yeah- not to mention the FTB grant that gives you back a decent chunk of cash
or in a lot of cases - if you save 5% - show your entitlement to the 5% on the FTB scheme that is enough to secure the mortgage as long as you can show reasonable finances
it mightnt get the 500k pad in whereever but FFS itll get you a grand house
people make me sick tbh
work hard, get yourself together , make a few tough calls for a year or so and you can get that together
its the ultimate in first world problems - this is the easiest country to live in from any place ive been
Will this pandemic see a genuine move to almost permanent WFH? Or will people/companies slip back to the normal routine after a while? One of our main reasons for buying in Dublin 5 was for easy access to the DART and pretend IRA territory. I’d be tempted to relocate to Wexford if I could WFH permanently, or even if I was office based 1 day per week…maybe even 2. It could result in people moving to provincial home places and freeing up supply in Dublin. Probably not gonna happen though.
I think it has shown many companies how viable it is.
The advantages are many:
Better work life balance
Less traffic and associated pollution
Increases supply of rental and dwellings in large urbal areas
Greater distribution of wealth
Etc.
I have a buddy who works with Bank of America in Dublin but has been working from Dungraven since lockdown.
I have an idea that Goverment should open “work from home” hubs around the country. You wouldn’t actually be working from home but in a we share office type environment with first class infrastructure in terms of broadband etc.
Open them in provincial towns all over the country and keep the rent low and flexible. It would solve a lot of problems in terms of distribution of people and jobs, rural decline, house prices, traffic etc etc etc.
Say you are working for one of the big 4 in Dublin. But you live in Meath, so you go into the office a couple of times a week for meetings etc but the other days you work from say Navan in this shared office space or maybe in Longford Town if you live in Longford or whatever. I think people and companies would go for that, costs to have a few setup in Longford would be way lower for the company and for the people.
Better staff retention, job satisfaction, smaller overheads. Win win win