Life

TV review: Burnt By The Sun laid bare the groupthink of the property bubble

Billy Foley

Billy Foley

Billy has almost 30 years’ experience in journalism after leaving DCU with a BAJ. He has worked at the Irish Independent, Evening Herald and Sunday Independent in Dublin, the Cork-based Evening Echo and the New Zealand Herald. He joined the Irish News in 2000, working as a reporter and then Deputy News Editor. He has been News Editor since 2007

Christine Matthews, an Irish investor who lost out on a foreign property dream, told her story to Burnt By The Sun
Christine Matthews, an Irish investor who lost out on a foreign property dream, told her story to Burnt By The Sun Christine Matthews, an Irish investor who lost out on a foreign property dream, told her story to Burnt By The Sun

Burnt By The Sun, RTE 1, Monday at 9.35pm

It seems unbelievable now that the hysteria has passed, but a little more than a decade ago Irish people thought they had some kind of genetic advantage in the property market.

Irish house prices were among the highest in the world and many felt they had found the secret of alchemy.

Even the political leaders were convinced the property market could only go in one direction – up.

We didn’t know it at the time, but it was a society that had forgotten how to think independently.

There was a polite fiction after the bubble burst that the problem was cause by bankers alone, but that’s like blaming pubs for alcoholics. Everyone knew people in ordinary jobs who had leveraged their average incomes into property portfolios.

By the mid-noughties with value investments gone from the Irish market, these ambitious investors were diversifying into new arenas. Firstly, it was traditional Irish holiday destinations like Spain and France, but later it was Turkey, Bulgaria and even India.

Burnt By The Sun reminded us of the disaster of this groupthink and how the victims are generally the people who can least afford it.

You could only feel sorry for investors like Noel and Natasha who (remember this phrase?), “took the equity out” of their recently acquired Dublin apartment in 2008 and invested it in another apartment in a French leaseback scheme.

A couple of years later the property development company stopped paying the “guaranteed rent” and things turned difficult. Noel and Natasha split, at least partly because of the financial pressure, but were now back in the south of France facing the consequences of their poor decision.

“I would say we’re full of regrets. It’s definitely the worst decision we’ve made financially. You can’t actually even comprehend, you know, the amount of time and money and effort – just the toll on your mental health,” Natasha said.

When they met a French property expert things turned even more difficult. They were desperate to cut their losses but the adviser said the only option was signing a new leaseback agreement. Without it their property would be worth somewhere between E40,000 and E45,000, eleven years after they bought it for E125,000.

The weren’t the only losers obviously. Almost everyone Burnt By The Sun spoke to had a tale of finances shattered and mental health damaged.

There were ordinary families who had clubbed together to buy apartments on the Bulgarian coast who were sunk deeply into a questionable legal system.

As if that wasn't far away enough, there were a group of investors who were convinced by a sales presentation in a Dublin hotel and invested in a development in northern India which never happened. Despite winning legal battles and a decade of heartache they never got their money back.

The great recession of 2008 was only barely out of the rear-view mirror when the coronavirus pandemic hit, let’s just hope our actions this time have been based more in logic.

***

Harry's Heroes, UTV, Monday to Wednesday

Taylor Made Driving, Sky Sports, Sunday at 7pm

Bundesliga, BT Sport, Saturday

Harry's Heroes was fun television, but I don’t think too many Irish fans will have got a sports fix from watching an old boys England team beating Germany.

We were relying on the first live sport of the lockdown for that last weekend and it was a terrible disappointment.

This column apologises for recommending the Rory McIlroy charity match. It was a bore and I know of no one who watched the full coverage,

Similarly, German football with unfamiliar players and without any spectators was a flop in my living room.

The wait goes on for sport on TV.