[Cross posted from my own blog]
New figures were released today, and they are not pretty. I’ve tabulated all new car sales on file from the CSO, that is since 1965:
Here is the large version of that image.
New car sales are now hovering around what they were at least 15 years ago. I’ve put the data into a public spreadsheet.
Another illustrative chart is house completions since 1975. We have returned to levels last seen in 1992.
Another very illustrative chart, especially in the context of NAMA is this graph. It shows average house prices since 1975.
Where do you reckon prices are going naturally? If you draw a line from 1975 along the average until the bubble started around 1996/1997 and keep going… prices would be headed back to around 4 times average salary, circa €120,000.
Scary graph alright. Not a bad stab at predicting prices either I’d say. If the prospect of NAMA wasn’t freezing prices we would have a lot more stories like this one:
http://www.longfordleader.ie/news/Ballinagh-houses-at-100k-cause.5522485.jp
You’d need to take interest rates into consideration too Gavin.