West Cork Property Boom
The West Cork Property scene has, for some time, been a very vibrant one. For quite a while, it seems that we’ve been hearing about its impending demise, implosion, collapse… call it what you will. The point is – it hasn’t happened. The reasons why it hasn’t happened are multiple.
First of all, West Cork is in the Republic of Ireland and the West Cork property market is a part of the Irish property market. The country as a whole, and the property market therein has known a sustained rate of boom that is, quite simply, unprecedented in this country. So many times over the last 10 years, the epitaphs have been written of Ireland’s economic boom and of the property market, from within the country (Ireland’s Central Bank, presumably with little to do since the introduction of the Euro, regularly issues sombre warnings of the impending clouds of negative equity and financial misery) and from without (The Economist, for example, while full of praise for such a right-on economically booming little republic, has also made haughty predictions of how we’re all going to have the smiles wiped off our faces when the crash hits us with equal force). But the boom continues because the conditions are right and it has become a self-sustaining, self-propelling beast of a thing that defies the analysis of the traditional Anglo-Saxon right-wing economists who all go to the same schools in Britain and the US.
Getting back to the reality of the situation, though, there are some hard facts to face, not least of which is the fact that the extraordinary surges in property prices that have become the norm over the last decade now appear to be at an end and the current national rate of increase in property values is somewhere around 2 or 3 per cent at best.
While such figures may cause a few beads of sweat to form on the brows of those in larger towns and cities in Ireland, where the more traditional economic rules apply, there should be no cause for major concern in the West Cork property market, where the reasons for people buying are perhaps only about 45% economic. The rest of the time, it’s a lifestyle choice, a holiday home, or – even more pertinently – a sound long-term investment. This last one is the telling feature of the story of West Cork property. This is the kernel of economic truth that is unshakeable and which is supported by decades and decades of steady, unflinching growth; growth through the doldrums of the 50’s, through the mini-boom of the 60’s and early 70’s, through the depressin’ recession from there to the early 1990’s and, of course, through the years since.
For there will always be those who are wise and those who appreciate beauty and harmonious living and to them is truly the kingdom of heaven.
Lesson endeth.
