Daft Property - Irish Property News

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...

Poles flee ailing Irish economy... When the European Union expanded eastward in 2004, Ireland opened its doors to workers entering from former communist states to help maintain record economic growth. Now, immigrants are heading for the exit. The number of people leaving Ireland next year will outstrip those moving to the country for the first time in 14 years, according to Economic and Social Research Institute in Dublin. The biggest exodus will be among the 170,000 workers who arrived the past four years from Poland and other east European states. ''It's a very hard situation,'' said Artur Kawczynski, 30, who lost his factory job in Galway on Ireland's west coast 10 days ago. ''I rang my friends in Poland to ask what job opportunities there are like.'' Immigrants like Kawczynski fed the manufacturing and building booms that helped double the size of Ireland's economy during the past 10 years and made it the most dynamic in western Europe. N...

...echoes of the 1930s Midwest in the sorry mortgage belt tales of our estate agents... "And there on the Texas plains right in the dead centre of the dust bowl, with the oil boom over and the wheat blowed out and the hard-working people just stumbling about, bothered with mortgages, debts, bills, sickness, worries of every blowing kind, I seen there was plenty to make up songs about. . ." Woody Guthrie IRELAND is increasingly becoming a 21st century mirror of America's Midwest in the 1930s , a region that became known as the Dust Bowl after a series of devastating droughts, windstorms and economic depression tore out its very soul. In Ireland today, however, we have no Woody Guthrie, no one to sing us through this mess, no one who can somehow lift us out of the worst of times. And who tells these tales of sorrow better than those in the Irish property market? Once the jewel in the Irish economic crown, it now lies forlorn, a victim not only of its own success but of the...

Cowen has left this rudderless nation adrift on a sea of incompetency... It took a while to fully comprehend what was actually going on. This was, perhaps, because it seemed so unlikely. Of course, the more we learn about these things, the more we know it is not that unlikely at all. But those were more innocent times. Those were times when we had that cosy assumption that the people in charge vaguely knew what they were doing. Even if we have no respect for them or their intelligence, even if we disagree with their politics, in this country we generally assume that someone up there in government is vaguely managing things at some level of competence. If we don't think it's the actual Taoiseach or minister, we suspect that there are civil servants who've been running things for years and know what has to be done. After all, this is not some third-worldy banana republic. This is a well-turned-out, internationally accepted, sophisticated 21st century country. Someone must kno...

Desperation as luxury home prices halved... A DEVELOPER of luxury homes just 11km from Dublin Airport has been forced to slash the €1.4m sales price in half in a bid to attract buyers. Detached five-bed houses at Lynnwood in Ballyboughal, in north Co Dublin, originally went on the market for €1.4m. The 3,013-sq-ft (280sq-m) houses were first reduced by €450,000 in a bid to attract purchase-shy buyers. Then on Tuesday, the price was cut back another €100,000 to €850,000. By late yesterday, developers Area Building dropped the price by another €100,000 to €750,000. The move to cut the price in half came days after leading developer Taggart was forced into administration. Selling agent Paul Tobin said the homes were fully fitted out to a high standard. He insisted that the developer had spent €1.1m building each of the houses in the small scheme, once land values and construction costs were added together. Mr Tobin said the developer had been trying to sell the houses for months and was n...

'Affordable housing' now more expensive than market... WITH THE downturn in property prices, homes in north and south Dublin and Meath are on the market for the same or lower prices than similar homes under the affordable housing scheme. Buyers can save €10,000 on €245,000 two-bedroom apartments in Phibblestown Wood, Ongar, Dublin 15, and €5,000 on €205,000 three-bedroom homes at Parnell Drive and Parnell Green, Ladyswell, Mulhuddart, by purchasing on the open market instead of through Fingal County Council. Three-bedroom apartments at Bailis Village, Navan, Co Meath, available through the county council's affordable housing scheme for €233,000, are advertised at the same price on the open market, as are two-bedroom properties at Eaton Square, Rathcoole, in south Dublin, available through the county council for €220,000. By purchasing on the open market homeowners avoid the "clawback" aspect of affordable housing schemes. Clawback means that if a home is sold with...

The design of the first bridge across the border between the Republic and the North was revealed yesterday... The 280-metre-long cable-stayed bridge will link Narrow Water near Warrenpoint in Co Down with Cornamucklagh in Omeath, Co Louth, and has been designed so it is safe for cyclists and pedestrians. It is nearly 29 years since Narrow Water became synonymous with the single worst loss of life of British soldiers in the Troubles when two IRA bombs killed 18 soldiers. One civilian was also killed. The bridge has a tower at each end. The higher 100-metre-tall one is on the southern side, which will have the Cooley and Mourne mountains as a backdrop; while the lower tower at 30 metres will be on the northern end and will compliment the Drumlin topography there. Tony Dempsey, from consultant engineers Roughan O'Donovan, told councillors at meetings in Dundalk and Newry the criteria for selecting the bridge design included the impact on the environment and ecology as well as on the ...

It was Samuel Johnson who famously proclaimed in 1775 that “patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel”. What we have been witnessing has little to do with real patriotism — it is a phoney patriotism. In the circumstances, the more appropriate word is treason. THE US Democratic vice-presidential candidate, Senator Joe Biden, says raising taxes is patriotic. Speaking in a nationwide TV interview, he proclaimed: “It’s time to be patriotic.” Did the Yanks set the tone for this week’s budget? “This budget serves no vested interest,” Finance Minister Brian Lenihan told the Dáil on Tuesday. “It is no less than a call to patriotic action.” In fairness to Government ministers, they took a 10% cut in their salaries to give some example. Enda Kenny had called on all the politicians to cut their salaries. So the Government did give some example by cutting their own over-inflated salaries, but they offered little in the way of real leadership. People in a city who have a car park space provided ...

World poverty stone unveiled in Dublin... A commemorative stone to mark International Day for the Eradication of Poverty has been unveiled in Dublin today. The stone, which is situated near to the Famine memorial on Customs House Quay, was unveiled by Deputy Lord Mayor of Dublin Emer Costello. The commemorative stone was commissioned by Dublin City Council and Dublin Docklands Authority and is inscribed with words from Joseph Wresinski , founder of the international human rights organisation ATD Fourth World. The words - “Whenever men and women are condemned to live in poverty, human rights are violated. To come together to ensure that these rights are respected is our solemn duty” - were first inscribed on a commemorative stone laid on October 17 th , 1987, on the Human Rights Plaza in Paris where the Universal Declaration of Human Rights had been signed. Since then the same words have been used on more than 30 similar commemorative pieces around the world including the UN headquart...

Budget will 'turn recession into depression' ... POLITICAL REACTION: Fine Gael deputy leader and spokesman on finance Richard Bruton said this evening the Budget announced by Brian Lenihan today will "threaten to turn a recession into a depression". “This is a Budget that is all about extra taxes for ordinary families, about extra charges for people, and about cutting capital spending,’’ said Mr Bruton. “You are looking to make it tougher for people who are struggling to get by,’’ he added. “There is no sign that you are aware of the pressure on people from fuel bills, the pressure on people who have lost their jobs.’ Labour leader Eamon Gilmore said it "mercilessly targets middle income families". Speaking shortly after the Minister for Finance presented the Budget in the Dáil, Mr Gilmore said Mr Lenihan had failed to take any significant steps to protect the poor and vulnerable in the face of the worst recession facing the country for decades. “Despite ...

Nation braces for impact of Lenihan’s savage budget... FINANCE Minister Brian Lenihan last night warned he was “taking the knife” to billions of euro worth of spending in an emergency budget that may also inflict “painful” tax hikes. Signalling the grimmest government financial statement for a generation, Mr Lenihan revealed only the social welfare department would escape deep cuts. He insisted his key priority was to try and stabilise the State’s finances in the most difficult circumstances “in living memory”. Mr Lenihan’s blunt talking came as cabinet colleague Noel Dempsey indicated “painful” tax cuts would feature in the crunch economic statement. Preparing the nation for what is likely to be the most savage budget in a quarter century, Mr Lenihan said he faced immense challenges. “We want to stabilise the public finances in the most difficult circumstances in living memory,” he told RTÉ. Transport Minister Noel Dempsey also braced taxpayers for increases. “You can either borrow, c...

GOVERNMENTS have been drinking at the Last Chance Saloon when it comes to rescuing the world financial system, but it seems there is still a great reluctance to pay for the rounds. Last night's announcement from the emergency meeting of EU leaders fell short of the all-out strategy now being advocated by most economists. This would see governments putting fresh money (capital) into the banks so that they can begin counting and admitting all the capital they have lost through making loans which have not been repaid and, worse, buying loans and derivatives of loans at prices far above their real value. How far above was horribly illustrated on Friday at an auction of bonds issued by failed investment bank Lehman Bros. They were sold at less than 10 cents on the dollar, which means those banks which bought the bonds have lost over 90pc of their money. There is a general consensus now that losses in the global banking system are over a trillion dollars ($1,000 billion). It is an unimag...

The golden triangle – FF, the builders and the banks... Despite last week's bail-out, some of the country's most ambitious redevelopment plans are still in jeopardy... It was Fianna Fáil's best friend, Bob the Builder, who propelled the banks into the liquidity crisis and caused the historic post-midnight sitting of the Dáil. After a decade of swaggering around the corridors of power and inside the Fianna Fáil tent, many of those feted builders are now expected to put their most extravagant plans on ice and sit out the recession, cushioned by the citizens' guarantee to the financial institutions . "We're not so much talking about a golden circle as the golden triangle – Fianna Fáil, the builders and the banks," says Labour's Joan Burton. Irish banks are owed €110bn by the property and construction sector. It accounts for €60 of every €100 that residents have on deposit. As 28% of all borrowings, it is significantly greater than the 25% construction p...

Where do we go from here? As the State stepped in this week to avert a collapse of the Irish banking system, Joe and Mary citizen were left pondering a very uncertain future ... ' WE ARE WHERE we are . It's time to move on. Just do the vote. Just . . . just get it done. Okay?" blustered a Wall Street trader last Monday, minutes after the US Congress rejected the $700 billion (€505 billion) bailout for the banks. The CNN interviewer persisted with a question about the rage bubbling under Main Street USA. The tetchy trader ignored it. "We are where we are," he repeated. "It's time to move on. Just do the vote." Sound familiar? It should. The mantra was snapped up on this side of the Atlantic this week and used to quell the rabble demanding that the Irish masters of the universe be made to account for themselves before Ireland Inc's reputation was sold to save their necks. "Listen. We are where we are," snapped one cheerleader dismissivel...

Classic song by the spitting image TV show to the tune of the Madness song - Our House. Based on the financial situation of the time, rather like that of today..... Lyrics: Dad believed what Maggie said Get a mortgage buy a home So dad took out a great big loan For a while there we were chuffed Now the market has collapsed And we're absolutely stuffed Our house, in the middle of a slump Our house, no one wants to buy this dump Dad is desperate to sell But now our homes worth even less Than a pension from Maxwell Our living room's a mess Full of magistrates and bailiffs Trying to repossess Our house, in the middle of the boom Our house, it was worth a small fortune Our house, left us in a dreadful state Our house, why the hell'd we decorate We really caught a cold Nowhere we can go to now All the council houses have been sold Our dads taken some stick He's still voting Tory though By God he must be thick Our house, didn't work out like we planned Our house, prices dr...

Ireland's decision to guarantee all bank deposits will contribute to the demise of the single European currency, because it will erode the euro's credibility ...Hugh Hendry, chief investment officer and Partner at Eclectica Fund, told CNBC on Thursday... Watch the video: Promises of lavish spending such as this and others being discussed in Europe will erode investors' confidence, Hendry warned. The plan pledges to guarantee the liabilities of six Irish-owned banks totaling some 400 billion euros ($565 billion), more than twice the country's annual gross domestic product . "The decision, if left to stand … my prophecy is it will bring down the currency. The euro is not a tenable currency if you have politicians making such decisions. The reality is there is no such thing as a free lunch "... Irish lawmakers backed the plan and the government said it may be extended to foreign banks with retail units in Ireland, but it has raised questions in Brussels and Londo...

So why are we in this international economic crisis - it's no accident - it's been planned for some time. Meet the money masters... "The powers of financial capitalism had a far-reaching plan, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private ... all » hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole...Their secret is that they have annexed from governments, monarchies, and republics the power to create the world's money..." THE MONEY MASTERS is a non-fiction, historical documentary that traces the origins of the political power structure that rules our nation and the world today. The modern political power structure has its roots in the hidden manipulation and accumulation of gold and other forms of money. The development of fractional reserve banking practices in the 17th century brought to a cunning sophistication the secret techniques initially used by goldsmiths fraudulently to accumu...

BBC panel discuss the ramifications of the passing of the $700 billion 'Bailout Bill' in the US, and the impact that will be felt in Europe and the Middle East...

Budget cuts of 2 billion euro as economic crisis deepens... But property developers seek hundreds of millions in refunds due to value losses ... FINANCE minister Brian Lenihan is looking for fresh spending cuts of around €800m for next year, on top of the €1.3bn reduction that has already been signed off by ministers in estimates negotiations. The grim news comes as it emerged this weekend that Ireland's property developers, who made millions in the boom, are seeking tax refunds of hundreds of millions of euro after writing down the value of their land banks and other assets. This threatens to drastically reduce the corporation tax receipts the Revenue Commissioners were banking on. With September tax returns expected to be very bad and the economic climate rapidly deteriorating, a further 1.5% reduction in 2009 spending is now up for debate. This would bring planned cutbacks in current expenditure for next year to more than €2bn . " It's very grim. Two weeks after finan...

THE Irish banking system would have “totally collapsed” without the Government’s €400 billion crisis guarantee plan, the Tánaiste warned yesterday . Mary Coughlan made the claim as opposition parties attacked the rescue bid’s “vagueness”. The enterprise, trade and employment minister insisted failure to act would have tipped Ireland into economic meltdown. “We would have found ourselves in a different set of circumstances if we had not brought in this legislation. We would have undermined the system of banking and it would have totally collapsed,” she told the Dáil . Ms Coughlan was responding to demands from Labour leader Eamon Gilmore to explain exactly how much taxpayers were expected to put at risk to cover the rescue plan, and what banks would be charged if they take up the Government’s offer to cover their liabilities. “This country is being asked to go guarantor for the banks and in effect we are being asked to put up the deeds of the country as security in doing so. “How muc...

Financial crisis...the main issues behind the government's decision to guarantee bank deposits... Q: Why did the Government guarantee bank deposits? A: It had no choice. After yesterday's collapse in bank shares and the rejection of the Paulson bank bailout plan in the United States, the Government had to move. With Irish banks paying a huge premium to borrow money from foreign banks our entire financial system had come within a few hours of completely seizing up. Q: How safe are my savings? A: After this morning's move, the savings of bank depositors are now 100pc state-guaranteed. This means that savers who have money deposited with the six Irish banks -- AIB, Bank of Ireland, Irish Life & Permanent, Anglo Irish, EBS and Irish Nationwide -- can sleep easily in their beds at night. Q: Which banks aren't covered by the guarantee? A: None of the foreign-owned banks are covered by the guarantee. These include Ulster Bank, NIB, First Active, Bank of Scotland, Halifax a...