Daft Property - Irish Property News

Over 600 ghost estates stand as haunting legacy of crash... THE startling scale of Ireland's property crash is laid bare today as academics reveal that more than 600 'ghost' estates are scattered around the country. For the first time, a comprehensive map charts the locations of the empty and abandoned developments that stand as haunting monuments to the Celtic Tiger splurge . The analysis suggests pockets of the north-west and midlands will be worst hit by a housing glut that will take years to sell off. Largely rural counties Leitrim, Longford, Roscommon and Sligo have the highest number of partially built and semi-vacant housing estates when measured against their populations. Their relative distance from major cities is expected to compound their oversupply problem for the foreseeable future. Although Cork has 96 so-called 'ghost' estates and Dublin 58 -- the highest figures by county -- it is believed that their urban populations can absorb the surplus much soo

OPINION : By 2015, Iceland will almost certainly be a lot better off than Ireland because it dealt decisively with its banks ... WHILE THINGS are hard to predict, the future, especially the situation of the Irish economy, is so stark that even an economist can make some predictions that stand a chance of being right. Two ghosts of Christmas will haunt Ireland in 2015: jobs and debt. For 20 years, the Irish economy experienced extraordinary growth. Unfortunately, this growth came from two separate booms that merged imperceptibly into each other. First we had real growth in the 1990s, driven by rising competitiveness and exports. However, after 2000 competitiveness collapsed, and growth came to be driven by a lending bubble without equal in the euro zone. As Michael Hennigan of Finfacts (www.finfacts.ie) has pointed out, of the half million jobs created in the last decade, only 4,000 were in exporting firms; and fewer people now work in IDA-supported companies than in 2000. The Irish eco

50,000 new homes lying empty in 'ghost' estates... AT LEAST 50,000 newly-built homes are lying empty in 'ghost' estates across the country because of the economic downturn. Hard-pressed developers and estate agents are being forced to drop their asking prices by as much as 50pc in a desperate effort to shift unwanted homes dotted across the country. An Irish Independent investigation has also found that hundreds of housing estates which should have been completed at least two years ago are still unfinished. Figures from local authorities show that county councils will not take responsibility for maintaining roads and open spaces in at least 300 estates because they have not been finished to the standard required by the planning permission. The glut of empty homes -- many built under tax break schemes -- shows the pressures now being faced by homebuilders in the economic downturn. Warned House completions are at their lowest level in years and builders are putting off st