Daft Property - Irish Property News

The fundamentals of the Irish housing market point to more sharp falls over the next two to three years... WITH HOUSE prices falling fast and likely, come the autumn, to fall even faster, no sane person would currently even think of buying a house. But this immediately raises the question of how long the crash will last. In other words, how long will it be before you can buy a house and not regret the decision for the rest of your life? Looking at past collapses in house prices abroad, we can see that they fall into two broad groups. In the first group, that includes Japan and Switzerland, prices suffered a long, slow decline of a few per cent a year for a decade. The second group, that includes the Netherlands and Finland, saw real prices halve in three to four years, and then fall gently for a few more years. If this second pattern repeats in Ireland, given that we are already one year into the crash, we can expect two to three more years of sharp falls. After that, prices should sta

Dubliners are bracing themselves for further flooding as heavy downpours are predicted in the coming days. The news comes as residents in many parts of the capital are today coming to terms with the damage wreaked by Saturday's intense rainfall. Met Eireann says heavy and thundery rain is likely in Leinster tonight, with flooding a real possibility in many areas. And the outlook for the coming days does not look much better, with heavy rain predicted for Tuesday and Wednesday. Meanwhile, a senior Dublin City Council official has admitted the capital's drainage system cannot cope with the "freak" rainfall which occurred over the weekend. Rainfall City engineer Tom Leahy said the system was designed to deal with normal or even heavy rainfall. "It cannot deal with these extreme events," Mr Leahy said today. A top climate expert warned that Dubliners will have to get used to the heavy rainfall and flash floods that hit the city on Saturday. Dr John Sweeney of NU