How the Iran War Will Hit Your Mortgage, and the Housing Crisis in Spain | BTF 281
Behind The Facade - Real Estate Investing
Release Date: 10/12/2026
Behind The Facade - Real Estate Investing
LEARN MORE - YouTube Channel - *** Oil prices and property seem unrelated. They are not. In this episode I trace how the Iran war and oil above $100 a barrel will find its way into your wallet. It starts with the obvious first-order effects, fuel and heating bills. Then come the second-order effects most people miss, because oil and gas feed into around 500 products, from tyres and paint to fertiliser and insulation. Finally there are the third-order effects: inflation, higher interest rates, tighter mortgage approvals and developers being squeezed until projects stop being viable. That is...
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LEARN MORE - YouTube Channel - *** What if owning a property has nothing to do with getting the mortgage? My guest this week, Chris A Williams, buys houses in Virginia without applying for a new mortgage. He uses a creative financing strategy called "subject to": he takes over the seller's existing mortgage payments, takes the deed, and gets into each deal for under $20,000 all in. It won't work the same way here in Ireland, but the thinking behind it will change how you look at any deal that seems out of reach. First, the property news. Mortgage approvals hit record levels,...
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Is now a good time to buy property? It's the question Gavin gets more than any other, so in this episode he answers it properly. Using the market clock, he shows where sentiment actually sits (almost everyone says 11pm) and why "peak of the market" means nothing until you ask "peak of what?" Residential, office, industrial, data centres, hotels and medical are all moving differently. From there he breaks down the three forces that decide where prices go next: the bond market and rising interest rates, the AI bubble and whether it bursts like the dotcom crash, and the 18-year property cycle...
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Kyle McGee has raised $11 million from 50 investors. He is in his early thirties, and almost none of that money came from institutions. It came from aunts, uncles, family friends, and people who have sat in the same church as him for 30 years. This week I am breaking down syndication: the model where you raise money from a group of investors to buy an asset far bigger than you could buy on your own. It is not new. Irish partnerships were doing it in the early 2000s, including the syndicate that outbid a Saudi prince for the Savoy Hotel Group. Kyle is doing it at a more modest scale on the...
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My father died in November 1993. When we finally opened the pile of post he had left behind, one letter showed the interest rate on the family home mortgage. It was 16%. In this episode I build what I am calling the Interest Rate Ladder. Every rung of ECB policy since the bank was created in 1999, priced against the same loan so you can see exactly what each rate does to a real monthly payment. The loan: €300,000, 25-year term, tracker at ECB plus 1%. We start where we are now, at a main refinancing rate of 2.4% and a payment of €1,486 a month. Then we climb down through the cutting...
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REGISTER FOR WORKSHOP - *** BTF Episode: 276. Irish Property News Roundup for Week Ending 12.06.26 All the news impacting the Irish property market in one place. If you enjoyed this episode please leave a review! *** Support for the podcast: Buy me a Coffee: Learn more about my Accelerator:
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LEARN MORE 👉🏼 *** BTF Episode: 275. From Six-Pack to Seven Figures with Rob Lipsett Rob Lipsett has built Ireland's biggest fitness brand from his iPhone 5 and a few hours of grind after a 9-to-5. But this conversation isn't about health and fitness, it's about what comes after you've built your audience. We sat down in Marbella to talk business, property, and what it really takes to turn a personal brand into a long-term asset. Rob is one of the sharpest operator-creators I've come across — and his journey from college dropout to Villa Lipsett has lessons that go...
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LEARN MORE 👉🏼 *** BTF Episode: 274. Is the 5x Income Mortgage a Dangerous Sign? Ireland’s mortgage market is shifting again, with Nua Money now offering up to 5x income borrowing. In this episode, we break down the history of Ireland’s lending rules and explore the potentially dangerous second-order effects of expanded credit colliding with rising construction costs and housing shortages. If you enjoyed this episode please leave a review! *** Support the channel:
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LEARN MORE 👉🏼 *** My guest this week is Chalie Fitzgibbon who built a construction and development business in Edinburgh, Scotland, scaled it to a staff of 110 before grappling with some serious challenges that drove him to the decision to sell the business. All before his 30th birthday - this episode will open your eyes. If you enjoyed this episode please leave a review! Thank you *** Support the channel:
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Is a property market crash coming in 2026? After a five-month break from the podcast, Gavin J Gallagher returns to make the case that we have just entered year one of a new 18-year property cycle, and that year one historically starts with a downturn. The episode opens with a personal story. In January, Gavin and his family stayed in the Fairmont on the Palm in Dubai, in a city-view room overlooking the car park. Weeks later that exact spot was the first impact site of the Iranian drone attack on Dubai. What followed has reshaped the risk picture for property investors in Ireland, the UK and...
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YouTube Channel - https://www.youtube.com/@GavinJGallagher
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Oil prices and property seem unrelated. They are not.
In this episode I trace how the Iran war and oil above $100 a barrel will find its way into your wallet. It starts with the obvious first-order effects, fuel and heating bills. Then come the second-order effects most people miss, because oil and gas feed into around 500 products, from tyres and paint to fertiliser and insulation. Finally there are the third-order effects: inflation, higher interest rates, tighter mortgage approvals and developers being squeezed until projects stop being viable. That is the doom loop, and it is why people in finance are getting nervous.
First, a quick round-up of the Irish Budget. Landlords were overlooked again, capital gains tax was cut from 33% to 31%, Help to Buy went up to €35,000, a new 7% derelict property tax arrived, and Rent-a-Room relief went up to €16,000.
Then to Spain (a market I also keep an eye on) where an 87-year-old woman was carried out of her Madrid home of 70 years on a stretcher after an investment fund raised her rent from €500 to €2,650 a month. That image sparked protests in over 50 cities, a snap general election and a national strike called for 11 November. I break down the 750,000-home shortfall, 12.2% annual price growth, the proposed decrees against short-term rentals and why punishing landlords wins votes but will never deliver on the extra homes needed.
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In this episode:
- When oil went negative in April 2020, and why the reverse is now happening
- First, second and third-order effects of high oil prices on property
- How affordability and developer margins create a supply doom loop
- Why stimulus may be off the table as government bond yields rise
- Spain’s housing protests, snap election and proposed anti-landlord decrees
- Ireland vs Spain: what the supply numbers tell us
- The political risk every landlord needs to price in
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CHAPTERS:
00:00 Intro
00:30 Irish Budget round-up: what landlords got (and didn’t)
02:10 The day oil went negative
03:41 Oil above $100: why a property channel cares
04:30 First-order effects: fuel, heating, energy bills
05:23 Second-order effects: 500 uses of oil and gas
08:20 Third-order effects: inflation and interest rates
09:55 Affordability and the developer squeeze
11:39 The doom loop and recession risk
13:32 Elite Property Academy
13:55 Spain: snap election and national strike
15:30 The eviction that sparked a nation
16:38 Why Spain is angry: the supply gap
18:37 Landlords, Airbnb and the backlash
20:22 Spain’s proposed emergency decrees
21:17 Why Pedro Sánchez called a snap election
23:12 Ireland vs Spain: the supply numbers
24:35 Elite Property Accelerator
24:55 Final thoughts: political risk for landlords
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Behind the Facade is hosted by Gavin J Gallagher, a Dublin-based property investor and developer with 30 years in the Irish and international market, and first-hand experience of three property crashes.
Need some help: https://workwithgavin.com
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Support the podcast: https://buymeacoffee.com/gavinjgallagher