Daft Property - Irish Property News

200,000 homes may need to be bulldozed -- bank AN explosive report has claimed that Ireland has so many empty houses that it would take up to 43 years to fill them all. Deutsche Bank figures suggest that there are 289,451 empty houses in Ireland, including almost 60,000 vacant holiday homes. This represents a vacancy rate of 15 per cent. As the Deutsche Bank map shows, the empty properties are highly concentrated around the Atlantic coast with Kerry and Donegal particularly badly afflicted. This glut of empty homes will have a major impact on future property prices. "Demand for housing is the key factor as to how long it will take for this oversupply to be reduced, and aside from demand for second homes the key driver should be population growth," Deutsche Bank notes. Based on 2011 figures which showed population growth of just 13,000, and the average number of residents per house, the bank estimates that it could take until 2055 for the glut of houses to be worked through

Bulldozers send boomtime buildings crashing down... TWO unfinished houses that would have fetched €200,000 each during the boom have been bulldozed because of public safety fears. The unoccupied houses -- and foundations for three more -- were levelled at Church View in Clongeen, Co Wexford, at a cost to the taxpayer of €28,000. Other residents of the estate last night said they were relieved that Wexford County Council had taken action against the developers, Impulse Construction Ltd, by knocking down the houses. They said the unfinished houses had attracted vandals and encouraged anti-social behaviour for some time, and were unsightly at the entrance to the estate. This was the first time houses had been demolished in a new estate in Wexford, but the Department of the Environment confirmed other houses had been demolished on a small number of occasions. Wexford County Council confirmed it has more plans in the pipeline to carry out "public safety works which may involv