John Coleman’s Mortgage and Housing Market Predictions for 2025: Tea and Mortgage Podcast #25

 0:09 – 0:22 Norm Schriever

Hey everyone, thanks so much for tuning in to the TN Mortgage Podcast, episode number 25, which is apropos because we are kicking off 2025 with your host, John Coleman.

 0:23 – 0:46 John Coleman

Happy New Year to everyone. Yes, 2025, it’s scary when you say it like that, when you say it out loud. It doesn’t seem real.

My life is running away with it. So hopefully this is the year we help you all get into your new home, and then hopefully we will inspire you with some good ideas on our podcast today.

0:47 – 0:56 Norm Schriever 

Yeah, absolutely, and we’re going to have fun with this one, John. We started this tradition a year or two ago, and we actually do your predictions for the coming year.

0:56 – 1:03 John Coleman 

I didn’t do as well last year as I did the year before, so I need to kind of get myself back on track, you know.

1:04 – 1:15 Norm Schriever 

You’re in the hot seat, definitely. Well, see if you could redeem yourself, but we’re going to ask you to not hold back and give general wishy-washy predictions. I want you to really go for it this time.

 1:16 – 1:28 John Coleman

Okay, I’ll call it as I believe. No, in fairness, I was correct around the prices and the rates, but just with a little bit of… I didn’t nail myself to the math, I suppose, last year. I was a little…

1:28 – 1:39 Norm Schriever 

Yeah, you added some context, which is understandable, but you still, between the two years, have a glowingly positive approval rate for your predictions, so you’re doing better than others.

1:40 – 1:42 John Coleman 

Excellent still. So where do we start, my friend?

1:43 – 1:56 Norm Schriever

Yeah, let’s start with the easy one, which is also, I guess, easy to talk about but difficult to gauge, and that would be home prices. So where do you think property prices will go in 2025 in Ireland?

1:57 – 4:56 John Coleman

Right, well, this is probably isn’t what everyone’s going to want to hear, okay, but I can only see them going one way, and that is up. Okay, there’s two reasons for that, and I’ll give you some context as well. Firstly, in Dublin and in Ireland, the house prices went up by almost 10% last year, not too shy of it, which didn’t surprise me at all, even though when I was predicting about it, I was kind of expecting it not to be quite that much, because the rates didn’t come down as quickly as we thought, but ultimately, the supply is still…

In my opinion, basic economics is prices based on supply and demand, obviously, and confidence will be a function of demand. But if nothing affects the confidence, and to date, Covid hasn’t affected the demand, the interest rates going up by 4% hasn’t affected the demand, and the supply is still nowhere near the levels required just to fill the year-on-year basic increase of the new people coming to the market who want to buy a home for themselves. So I don’t see the prices going anywhere downwards.

Interest rates are due to continue to fall. Again, that goes into more detail, but that’s what the general expectation is. So people obviously want interest rates to fall, but sometimes it’s a case of be careful what you wish for, because if interest rates start to fall, that just increases the amount of money that the banks will lend to people, which ultimately increases people’s buying power.

But if their buying power is increased, but the supply hasn’t gone anywhere, all it does is actually have an increase in the cost of the property. So fundamentally, the supply issue is still the greatest challenge to the prices in this economy that we’re currently in. And I would nail it to the prices going up anywhere between 5% to 10% next year.

I’d be pretty confident with that prediction. I hope it’s not any more than that. Because there’s got to be a point that’s reached, Norm.

Where is the tipping point? Where is the point whereby people just go, okay, yes, the bank will give me this, but it’s just not worth it. I’m not spending 500,000, 600,000 on a property that I just don’t see that as value.

So I wonder, will that ever happen? Or is it just the desire to get on the property ladder or not to be paying rent?

4:57 – 5:10 Norm Schriever 

Yeah, exactly. I was going to ask you about that prediction of the tipping point, because at a certain point when it’s cheaper to rent and you’re not locking yourself into the crazy home prices and you figure, okay, there’s got to be a correction coming.

5:11 – 7:21 John Coleman 

So there’s the other challenge, by the way. And again, the supply issue is the problem for both the people who are going to buy a home, but trying to rent a home is just as difficult. So the cost of rent is really, really high for people. So that kind of layer, because if rates are coming down, well, it’s suddenly cheaper.

So I don’t see the tipping point happening in the next year to two years, just based on the fundamentals, based on rates likely to come down. There’s no, the supply is really, really weak. And the rental market, it’s not a case that there’s abundance of properties to rent at a much more cost-effective way of living your life.

So I would be of the view that that’s the way the prices are going to go next year, somewhere between five to 10%. Obviously, Norm, just to kind of expand on that slide, that’s a very top level figure. Obviously, in the property market, there’s a number of different segments.

There’s a segment, obviously, Dublin is a market on its own, outside Dublin is another market. But even then, within that market, there’s house prices for people who are looking to buy a house between 400 and 500, 500 to 700, 700 to a million. So there’s different layers of different types of markets.

So they all have their own characteristics, and again, supply-demand characteristics. But I don’t see the prices falling on any of the individual segments within the market. The advice, I always give people a look at where you feel you’re at, and go to the property price register, that will give you a sense of what prices went for in the last couple of months in the area that you’re looking for.

And then maybe factor in a five or 10% increase on that, to kind of give you a sense of what you may end up having to pay for a home. That’s not an exact science, by the way, but you need to educate yourself and shape a form as to where you start.

7:23 – 7:46 Norm Schriever 

Sure, and so let me ask you this, you talk about those market segments, and do you predict in 2025 that the increase in prices and activity in Dublin will be hotter, or outside, like second cities, smaller cities, or rural areas in Ireland as people chase affordability? Which do you think will be, yeah?

7:46 – 8:30 John Coleman

Great question, and this is where I slightly got it wrong last year, because there happened to be a trend of people the year before looking to move outside Dublin because they couldn’t afford the houses in Dublin. Some of you, and that may happen, basically, you know, that there could still. So my instinct would be Dublin and the commuter belt of Dublin, the likes of Kildare, Meath, Wicklow, I’m sure I’m missing Louth, they would, they’ll all kind of fall under one sort of range, because price in Dublin will go up, but if anyone does not value there, they’ll start looking to the outside Dublin.

8:30 – 8:33 Norm Schriever 

A train ride away, like the metro area.

 8:33 – 9:47 John Coleman

Yes, exactly. The other cities will have a similar, Cork, Galway, Limerick, will have kind of similar characteristics, because they’re the hubs, basically, you know, and they still have the same supply issue and demand. The prices may not go up as much as in Dublin, okay, but there’s still shortages in comparison to the demand in the big cities.

As for rural, they’re kind of, I wouldn’t even want to give a proper prediction on that, because they can have their own characteristics. I am putting them in the other, like there won’t be as many new properties in rural areas, so it’ll be second hand, but it’s all local, localized, you know, so ultimately, if you’ve got three people looking to buy the one house, well, the price is only going one way. So, sort of local areas have their own kind of market characteristics, but the fundamentals of supply and demand would still suggest that prices will go up, maybe not by as much, but still they will go up.

The prices, I will nail my coat off the mask here, prices will not fall next year.

9:48 – 9:50 Norm Schriever 

Okay, gotcha, gotcha. And yeah, within…

9:50 – 10:27 John Coleman 

I say that with a lot of confidence, no, I mean, it’s not for people I want to hear, but you can’t ignore the stats, you can’t ignore supply and demand. Now, unless something strange happens in the world, oh God, we’ve experienced a lot of strange things.

We had COVID, prices continued to sort of go up slightly, so I’m not sure what would, and I don’t even want to think what might happen, what might want to happen to make my prediction be wrong, you know, because if something weird happens, well, then the world’s not in a good place, that’s for sure.

10:28 – 10:47 Norm Schriever 

Yeah, absolutely. And so with mortgage rates, you mentioned, you know, a little bit about them, and of course, the ECB is set to drop rates, you know, hopefully, as inflation calms down a little bit. So where do you think rates will actually end up?

Let’s see if you could put in a specific prediction for 2020.

10:47 – 11:55 John Coleman 

Okay, I’m going to give a specific prediction that rates will fall by another, anywhere between half a percent and three quarter percent next year. It is for the people who might be on variable rates, it is for people who are locked into buying a house now at a certain price. As I said at the start, it might be for the people who are, even though they think the repayments are going to be lower, because the rates are lower, well, suddenly, if the price is going up, it doesn’t really have that impact, because ultimately, they’re borrowing more money.

So they’re paying the same as they would have paid. But that’s kind of a very nuanced view on it. If I had to, I would say rates will start to come down again, maybe I’d say they’ll leave it for the first quarter, maybe March, there might be another reduction.

It’s difficult to take a kind of a, I would say they’ll come down by half a percent next year, top at three quarters percent. But that’s, they’re not even sure themselves. And that’s why I don’t, I’m not as confident around that prediction as I am around the house prices.

11:56 – 12:28 Norm Schriever 

Gotcha. Yeah, great. It’s good to have a, throw the predictions out there and we’ll see what happens.

But definitely, no one’s got a crystal ball, right? And as soon as you start assuming this is a lock, and this is a certainty, is when the world goes crazy and it changes. So, all right, let’s change hands here to, or let’s change direction to something that’s not as much financial.

But what do you see for trends in houses and paint colors and kitchens and baby rooms in 2025?

 12:28 – 12:56 John Coleman

Norm, you are talking to the guy who has, my taste is, I would have no layer of expertise. You’ve now definitely put me on the spot. I delegate all kind of color design thoughts to better place people than myself to make those.

12:56 – 13:15 Norm Schriever 

Let me do it. Let me do it like this then, because I know your design style, which is pure bachelor. And so right now you have one fake plant as your whole design motif in your, we see a second fake plant in 2025 in John’s office.That’s a prediction.

 13:15 – 13:33 John Coleman

Norm, you make it happen for me. I’ll delegate that to someone to go and get it done. I promise that there’ll be two fake plants in my office next year.

Okay. We might fly a private painting as well. That might make it more homely for that.

Yeah.

13:34 – 13:35 Norm Schriever 

Well, are you just getting crazy now?

13:36 – 13:51 John Coleman 

I don’t know what those words came out of my mouth. I don’t know that I really believe them, but they came out of my mouth. Anyway, that’s for sure.

I get the social pressure you were putting me under there, but it’s true. Where did that question come from anyway?

13:53 – 13:55 Norm Schriever

I thought I’d make you very uncomfortable.

13:55 – 14:18 John Coleman

You have. I just twisted it in the chair. But anyway, yeah, no folks, anyone listening to this, do not ask me any questions on design.

That’s something that I think should be left to better people than me. I’ll get you the money. That’s my role in this process. Okay

 14:19 – 14:30 Norm Schriever

All right. So how about something that you do have a good knowledge base about and you are interested in like sports, for instance, do you have any wonderful sports predictions for us in 2025?

14:30 – 16:20 John Coleman 

Right. I can give you a few. Okay.

Sports predictions is really where you put your, um, my sporting hero, as you may know, is a guy called Novak Djokovic. Um, he has teamed up with, and this is maybe alien to me, he’s teamed up with a Scottish guy called Andy Murray, who’s going to be his new coach, who literally was one of his greatest rivals for the last 20 years. So it’s a, um, it’s a really, really unusual airing.

The other guy, the guy who’s literally only retired six months ago, and they’re both famous for screaming at their coaches. Right. So it would be, it would be, it would be interesting to see how the guy who’s now the new coach takes it when Novak could be a volatile situation.

Yeah. So what I go to make a prediction that, and this is where it’s all new, it’s going to be funny because the British media don’t like Novak. They’re not, um, they wouldn’t be his biggest, um, they wouldn’t love them.

They, they basically, um, they don’t like it. I mean, there’s a lot of reasons, but they don’t like them. Um, but Andy Murray, his new coach was their hero.

Okay. So now they’ve got a dilemma, their hero, who was the first British man to win the British or the Wimbledon in 77 years, which the English were very, uh, the British were every year. Who’s going to win?

Will we, will we have a bridge winner? And the pressure that Andy Murray was under to do it. And he ended up doing it, beating Novak in the final.

Right. So their hero is now coaching to the guy. They always want to lose.

So I don’t know where that will land, but I’m predicting that Novak wins Wimbledon when Andy Murray is his coach next year.

16:20 – 16:23 Norm Schriever 

Okay. Okay. And I say that a great prediction.

16:23 – 18:33 John Coleman 

I say that with more from my heart than absolute because he’s now 37 years of age. There are another two new kind of kids on the block that we say are only 22 or 23 and who have now actually just overtaken him.

So is there one last sting in the bee, so to speak, you know, and, um, I just think Wimbledon will be his best chance of making, of making that happen. So that’s my first sporting prediction. My next big interest is Gaelic football.

Um, obviously I’m from Dublin and Dublin will be my team, but there’s, they’ve had to changing the rules and Gaelic as in there’s a number of real changes. And, um, we it’s, it’s, it’s going to probably throw the cat among the pigeons. Um, and it’s very difficult to know who will, who, who benefit from them.

Um, and Dublin have lost a couple of their key players that was a retired. So I don’t think Dublin will win the All-Ireland next year. I’m going to put a prediction now.

Um, and I wouldn’t mind this. Um, Donnie Gall is a far out , their prediction. You might know where Donnie Gall is right at the top of the country, always reigning.

Um, but they’ve after bringing back one of their superstar Gaelic football, who’s retired a couple of years ago. Um, but he’s come back and he is, he’s a phenomenal footballer. So, and ironically, he was part of the committee who changed the rules.

So there could be a story behind that, you know? So, um, now my last prediction, well, um, he, I’m hoping this is probably the easiest to get, right. And I’m hoping I’m wrong with it.

My football team is Man United, who I don’t even want to talk about. Um, I don’t want to predict that Liverpool, um, win the title next year, which is, uh, it’s they’re well ahead at the moment. I’m bringing my best mate to see a match in Liverpool in, in March.

Um, so I predicting Liverpool win the title and that’s won a bit like last year. One of the prediction I made was that Trump would win the election. I’m hoping I’m wrong about Liverpool winning the title.

18:34 – 19:05 Norm Schriever 

Yeah, exactly. We remember that one. We’ll, we’ll leave those predictions alone this year, but, uh, I do have two more questions or predictions I’m going to ask you to make.

Um, so the first one is what is in the cards? What’s in the crystal ball for John with love and marriage and, uh, settling down in C25. Has my mother been talking to you, but she called me before this and she, she told me to ask that she wants a, your new girlfriend at, at a Sunday dinner.

 19:06 – 19:15 John Coleman

I’m going to plead the fifth on that one that I don’t think there are predictions for that is no, no, that’s off limits. Did you really put me on the spot today?

19:16 – 19:20 Norm Schriever 

Uh, this is, this is like more like an interrogation than it is. It’s a podcast.

 19:20 – 19:26 John Coleman

No, no, no, no. We’re going to, I’m going to plead the fifth on that one, but I’ll keep you posted. Okay.

19:27 – 19:38 Norm Schriever 

Please do. And then the last one we’ll, we’ll let you off nice and easy on this one. Do you think 2025 will be the year where you and I finally meet in person? What’s your prediction?

 19:39 – 20:17 John Coleman

100%. Yes. Given that you’re going to be in Spain and I’ve already committed to going and meeting you five years later, absolutely.

We will meet next year. And when I make commitments like that, I honor them. So not that I feel like the commitment, it’s something that I will absolutely want to do.

We’ve worked brilliantly for, is it five or six? Is this our sixth year just before COVID came? And I remember COVID coming and you offered me a discount and within two weeks of COVID happening.

And I said, no, I don’t want one. Um, and that’s been the start of our brilliant. So that was 20.

So we’re now that all the 20, 21.

20:17 – 20:26 Norm Schriever 

But no, it’s brilliant. We worked awesome together, became great friends. Yeah, no problem.

Well, that there are the predictions and any last little predictions you want to leave us with?

20:27 – 21:24 John Coleman 

No, I suppose just on a serious note for people and who are looking to buy a home in 2025, you know, my mantra is education, education, education, basically, whether it be through me or to anyone else, get a proper understanding as to what you can do with the banks, because that will save you so much time, so much heartache. And that’s the, that’s the starting point of, of buying a home for yourself is getting, you know, the roadmap that I promote a lot, but getting that, getting that understanding, getting an understanding is, can I do something? What can I do with where I’m at right now?

Do I try to do that? Or do I, or do I wait till circumstances get to the point where I can achieve what I want? And that’s why educating yourself with that information, that’s ultimately how you can decide, well, what do you do?

Do you move forward now or do you wait? And that’s the starting point for anyone, basically, you know.

21:26 – 21:46 Norm Schriever 

Awesome. Yeah. And so there, there’s our predictions for 2025.

I predict also, it’s going to be a wonderful year for Tea and Mortgage Podcast, JC Mortgages, and of course, all your clients and followers and friends. And John, thanks for those predictions. We’ll see a year from now, if we could poke holes in them and see, see how you did, huh?

21:46 – 21:49 John Coleman 

100% we’d be poking holes in them. Okay. That’s for sure.

21:50 – 21:58 Norm Schriever 

There it is. Tea and Mortgage episode number 25 to Kickoff 2025. Thank you everyone for listening and your support.