Skip to main content

2009 Irish House Prices - Cut, Cut, Cut...

More price cuts as season starts...



There will be a drop in the supply of houses new to the market in 2009, but sellers are still having to cut prices - again...


THE DUBLIN property market has opened with price cuts at all levels of the market, as sellers digest news of the country's deteriorating finances and economists' gloomy forecasts.

Estate agents are taking a fresh look at their stock and advising sellers to reconsider prices. The reassessment is going on at all levels of the market, according to Peter Kenny of Colliers, where notable price cuts include €130,000 off a three-bedroom penthouse in a development at Old Conna, Riverdale, on Dargle Road, Bray, Co Wicklow. The 130sq m (1,400 sq ft) apartment with river views has has been reduced from €560,000 to €430,000.

Colliers has also dropped the price of a four-bedroom semi at Burnaby Mill in Greystones from €720,000 to €580,000 in an effort to attract buyers, while in Dún Laoghaire, Gunne has just dropped the price of an attractive three-bedroom semi with good gardens at 39 Highthorn Park from €700,000 to €660,000.

At other end of the price scale, Colliers has slashed €2 million from the price of a large detached house at 9 Temple Villas in Rathmines. The six-bedroom redbrick had been on the market since last May, priced at €10 million. At Christmas the vendors agreed to drop the price to €8 million.

Some economists have predicted that Irish house prices have considerably further to fall in 2009, but according to Sherry FitzGerald, house prices have already dropped by as much as 40 to 50 per cent since the peak of 2006, with the greatest fall off in values occuring at the upper end of the market.

The average price of a second-hand property in Ireland fell by 7.1 per cent during the final quarter of 2008, according to a report by the agency earlier this week. "This brings the level of price deflation for 2008 to 18.1 per cent - the highest level of price deflation ever recorded in the Irish market," says the company's chief economist, Marian Finnegan.

The results for the Dublin market are even more marked with price reductions of 7.8 per cent in the fourth quarter and 20.1 per cent in the year. The combination of this dramatic price reduction and the 1.75 per cent interest rate cutover the past six months has had a very positive impact on the affordability of property, a factor which bodes well for enhanced activity levels in the weeks and months ahead," says Finnegan.

Still, she says, activity levels in the coming weeks will be be "subdued" as consumers begin digesting the impact of the price correction and mortgage rate reductions along with continuing bad news on the economic front.

For the Dublin market, larger family homes are unlikely to see significant further correction with price reductions of 40-50 per cent already realised and supply levels now tightening, says Sherry FitzGerald. The agency has cut prices in the first week of business to stimulate interest. In Dalkey, Co dublin, Inishowen, a large five-bedroom family home on Knocknacree Road with spectacular views across Dublin Bay, is now priced at €2.175 million, down from €3 million last February.

Across the city in Castleknock, Dublin 15, features like a swimming pool and sauna have not been enough to sell Huntington, a lavish five-bedroom redbrick on Outfarm Lane for sale through Newcombe Estates. Sales agent John Newcombe has just dropped the price from €4.5 million to €2.9 million to tempt would-be buyers.




Report by ORNA MULCAHY - Irish Times.

Popular posts from this blog

More Allsop Fire Sales...

Allsop plans five fire sales a year... THE UK auction house Allsop and its Irish affiliate Space plans to hold up to five distressed property auctions a year following the success of its first auction last Friday when 81 out of 82 lots were sold for a total of €15 million. The next auction is scheduled for July 7th, when 200 lots will be auctioned, including apartments, tenanted shops, farms and houses. According to Space director Stephen McCarthy, his company is being inundated with requests from receivers, banks and individuals who want to sell their property fast. Many of the properties in Friday’s auction were sold by Bank of Scotland Ireland and it’s believe there is plenty more of this stock to sell. These include apartments in the Castleforbes development in the Dublin docklands, as well as units in Dublin 8 and in Castleknock. However, the agency is also considering taking on more agricultural land. One lot, a 55 acre farm in Co Wickow sold particularly well, making €42...

As Featured On Dublin Postcards, Ad's, U2 Video...

I see in the Irish Independent today an item concerning a favourite, Dublin landmark, of mine... "THEY have featured in numerous postcards and a very famous Guinness ad, but perhaps their most important cameo appearance came when they featured in U2s 'Pride (In The Name Of Love)' video. However, Dublin City Council does not believe the Poolbeg chimneys are iconic enough to place on their Record of Protected Structures. Following a request from Cllr Dermot Lacey (Lab) to have the landmark ESB chimneys placed on the protected record, city councillors heard that city planners had conducted a survey, history and full assessment of the chimneys. They concluded from this that while the Poolbeg chimneys were considered to be of a certain level of architectural, social and historical significance, they were not of sufficient value within the meaning of the Planning and Development Act, 2000. Complex The twin red and white chimney stacks measure 680 feet in height and were construc...

Property Ireland - Irish Land Values Go Up Like A Rocket & Fall Like A Stone...

Land values go up like a rocket and fall like a stone... SITE EVALUATION: Why would a developer bid €225,000 an acre in 1999 and €2.8m an acre in 2007? Bill Nowlan explains WHY HAS THE value of development land fallen so precipitously, by over 50 per cent in the past 12 months, when residential and other property values have only fallen by 25 per cent or 30 per cent? There is an old property cliché which says that "land values go up like a rocket and fall like a stone" and this seems to have been bourne out in Ireland over recent years. Why does this happen? To answer this question requires an insight into the way developers prepare their bids for development land and I set out below a glimpse into that process. Let me start by looking at how a developer in normal times estimates his bid for a plot of land with planning permission, which in estate agents' parlance is ready-to-go. The key starting point in a developers equations is the expected sale price of the finished b...