Posted by What a year it’s been! After the last few turbulent years, I’m not sure anyone could have predicted what a rollercoaster 2022 would turn out to be.
Over the past 49 episodes of the podcast we’ve been looking at news, developments and I’ve been giving my take on the common themes, Here’s a bit of a recap.
We started the year looking at predictions from heavy hitters such as Ray Dalio and Elon Musk (more about him later), and I gave my own take on the posture real estate investors may wish to take. That’s episode 83 if you want to go back and see what I got right (and wrong!).
Climate change and sustainability remained a hot topic through the year – in January I spoke to Nellie Reid of Meehan Green Sustainability Consultants about how the threats of of climate change could affect the real estate sector.
By February the crisis unfolding in Ukraine was looming large – throughout the year I’ve been looking at its impact on the real estate sector and how we headed straight into another emergency situation after emerging from the shadow of Covid.
To that end, mindset has always been a key underpinning of the podcast. In May, I gave my take on how to act before, during and after a crisis: with the crypto and stock markets collapsing it seemed a good time to jump into the topic! The collapse of crypto has affected a lot of people – in June I returned from my honeymoon to a number of negative economic news articles. In episode 111 of the podcast I discussed how you might prepare yourself for a Global Economic Collapse, whilst later in the month I looked at how real estate could be impacted by the ugly situation with crypto.
In August things seemed even more gloomy with interest rates on the rise. I talked about (again) how to prepare yourself should they go even higher, but also how you might be able to take advantage of the economic downturn: that’s episode 124 if you want to take another listen.
September saw a new segment of the podcast, looking at Real Estate News – pulling apart the latest headlines and sharing my opinion on them – very necessary when the changes were coming thick and fast! My head was spinning with the rapid change going on around us: in October, Rishi Sunak replaced Liz Truss and the Central Bank of Ireland finally eased its mortgage lending rules (a bit late in my opinion!) – episode 131 looked at this in more depth.
Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter was dominating the headlines in November – it seemed like the tech sector was having a meltdown with both Twitter and Meta (formerly Facebook) laying off thousands of staff. COP27 was big news as well – I covered both in episode 133.
Towards the end of the year I’ve taken a deeper look at the housing crisis here in Ireland – whether the houses we’re building are too big, whether the housing crisis can be fixed, and the hint of tax breaks for property developers – words I never thought I’d hear uttered by an Irish politician!
It hasn’t all been doom and gloom though – I was lucky to have some great guests in conversation over the year – huge thanks to everyone who gave their time to talk to me: Nellie Reid, Anthony Scandariato, Jake Clopton, Neil Timmins, Shane Fleming, Sam Liebman, Omni Casey, Rod Khleif, Philip Goodman, Mark Bryant, Kent Ritter, Paul Heming, Tobi Mancuso, Brian Grimes, Marc O’Dwyer and Scott Carson. Everyone shared invaluable insights in their field, well worth revisiting!
My YouTube channel has been going from strength to strength – my weekly Livestream has been an absolute blast. We’re taking a break now until the New Year, but you can revisit past episodes here – take a look and join us in January!
The last thing I want to say is a massive thank you to all my listeners and followers – I love getting your comments and questions. Wishing you all a safe, happy and warm festive season. Happy Holidays!