Daft Property - Irish Property News

Could this be a lifeline for those in negative equity?... Those with underwater mortgages may hope that new, negative equity mortgages could offer them a way out... Are negative equity mortgages a way out for people trapped in properties that no longer suit their needs or just another minefield waiting to blow up? COULD A SOLUTION to the negative equity nightmare currently facing hundreds of thousands of people finally be in sight? No, it’s not a rebounding property market, but rather a number of proposals aimed at lightening the load of those who bought during the boom, are now struggling to meet their monthly repayments and are stuck with properties they cannot sell. For those with underwater mortgages, the difficulty in selling arises because the sale of the property will not generate enough to pay back the lender. For example, if you bought a property for €400,000 with a 95 per cent mortgage during the boom, regardless of the fact that the apartment will now only make €280,000 on t...

McNamara, FitzPatrick facing bankruptcy 'in weeks'... TWO of the Celtic Tiger's highest fliers -- developer Bernard McNamara and banker Sean FitzPatrick -- face bankruptcy within weeks. The Irish Independent has learned that Mr McNamara, once worth almost €240m, is facing a fresh attempt by a group of private investors to force him into bankruptcy. The group is pursuing up to 40 properties owned by the Clare-born builder, records show. Meanwhile, Anglo Irish Bank will veto any plans by FitzPatrick -- who owes the bank €110m -- to reach a private deal with his creditors. Both men are now facing the real prospect of having all their assets, including their family homes, seized and sold off. Pursued Bankruptcy in Ireland lasts for 12 years, with those declared bankrupt facing travel restrictions, curbs on their ability to borrow money and/or run a business. Mr McNamara is already being pursued by investors arising from the disastrous Glass Bottle site investment. But now a sec...

Despite movement in the property market in the first six months of this year, little has changed really. Prices are still falling, the banks are continuing to enforce tougher lending criteria and discussion about the dreaded property tax has loomed its ugly head again instilling fear among most homeowners. Bank sales of apartment blocks that have gone bust have gained interest from buyers as the banks try to recoup some of their loans. But what’s going to happen for the rest of the year? Houses have started selling again, but are the volumes worth talking about and are bank sales going to become a common feature of the property market? Some commentators consider successful sales of receivership properties a sign of a recovery starting, others view them as a negative influence on an already struggling market. There has been considerable debate about a levelling-out of property prices or ‘‘a bottoming’’ of the market since the start of the year. Instead we’ve seen prices continue to fall...

Tycoon's dolce vita ends as art seized... THE Dublin city sheriff has seized an art collection and other valuables from the Ailesbury Road home of fallen property developer Bernard McNamara. The collection will be sold to help pay his debts. The sheriff, Brendan Walsh, is believed to have moved against the property developer within the past fortnight, calling to his salubrious Dublin 4 home acting on a court order to seize anything of value from his home to reimburse his creditors. The sheriff is believed to have taken paintings from the family home along with a small number of other items. The development marks a new low for Mr McNamara, once one of Ireland's richest men but who now owes €1.5bn . The property developer and former county councillor from Clare turned the building firm founded by his father Michael into one of the biggest in Ireland. He is the highest-profile former tycoon to date to be targeted by bailiffs, signalling just how far some of Ireland's billionai...

Debt crisis to worsen as markets target Ireland... Ireland has lost control of its financial fate and its future is now in the hands of the markets, one of Europe's leading sovereign bond commentators has said. Luca Cazzulani, deputy head of fixed income at Italian-German bank UniCredit, said the Irish and Portuguese governments could do little to influence their fate because the markets had signaled them out from the so-called PIIGS - Portugal Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain - for extreme scrutiny. He forecast that key sovereign interest rates in Ireland and Portugal, which rose last week to more than 5.5%, were "unlikely" to fall back below 5% because markets were not anticipating good news from Europe. "If anything, we are likely to get further bad news," Cazzulani warned. Irish and Portuguese sovereign interest rates could stay "very high" for five or six months. "If so, then we are going to face a series of stresses because these levels are ...

Department says it warned of property bubble... THE DEPARTMENT of Finance says it warned the Government from 2005 onwards about the dangers of a property bubble, internal official documents show. Briefing material prepared for the department’s secretary general Kevin Cardiff last month states that the department warned over several years that the “over-emphasis on construction left the economy vulnerable to macroeconomic shocks”. It also defends the department’s performance in failing to forecast the extent of the downturn, and points to similar failures by institutions such as the ESRI, Central Bank and the private sector to predict the magnitude of the slowdown. The material was prepared for the secretary general ahead of his appearance before the Oireachtas Public Accounts Committee just over a month ago. The contents of the documents have been released under the Freedom of Information Act in the same week Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan announced an external review of the depart...

Mortgage bid to unlock market could backfire... NEGATIVE equity is the scourge of homeowners who bought their houses in the past few years. By the end of this year, as many as one-in-three mortgage holders are expected to be in negative equity -- where the value of their home has collapsed to such an extent that they owe their lender more than it is worth. Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) economist David Duffy made the estimate based on house prices having fallen by 30pc from the peak of the housing boom in 2007. But most commentators say that house prices have fallen by around 50pc from the peak. In that case, the ESRI estimates that some 350,000 homeowners will end up in negative equity this year. Being in negative equity means you cannot sell your house to move somewhere else. This is because you will still owe the bank more than the sale price of the home. Banks will not normally allow you to sell up in that situation. This is why Ulster Bank and EBS Building Society a...

Return to Commuterland... Ghost estates, negative equity and soul-sapping commutes are the legacy of our planning-free property bubble. Cleaning up the zoning mess won't be easy... THE MANTRA of the boom years might well have been “Build it and they will come.” And for 10 years or more it worked. But the frenzy of construction was bound to come to an end, leaving Ireland littered with incongruous developments – as well as tens of thousands of vacant houses in ghost estates. In 2003, when we first took a long look at the commuter counties, it was evident that much of this unplanned growth had been fuelled by Dubliners fleeing exorbitant property prices. Getting their hands on relatively affordable houses, even in places they had barely heard of, seemed worth the commute. The trend of Dublin leapfrogging into Leinster and even, with Cavan and Monaghan, into Ulster ran counter to all planning policies, but this was simply ignored. The complacent view at the time was that the growth of...

Just how low can the market go? Research suggests the bottom is still some time away... Ronan Lyons of Daft.ie: 'The pace of the decline in house prices is gradually slowing' Sunnyside, The Burnaby, Greystones, sold at auction last week for €910,000 (€260,000 over the AMV) 65 Swilly Road, Dublin 7, a three-bed terrace with architect-designed rear extension, new to the market through Sherry FitzGerald for €295,000 Judging by the number of comments on the property page of the Sunday Tribune online, nothing gets readers reaching for the keyboard quite like that most contentious of topics – house prices. Then, to really get their goat, along came last week's headline in the Irish Times referring to a report on the European housing market by Standard and Poor...

Cowen on rack over 'homemade meltdown'... THE banking meltdown that cost taxpayers billions of euro was a result of "homemade" decisions and a government that thought "the party could last forever", two official reports revealed yesterday. In hugely damning findings, one report by two international banking experts pointed the finger of blame squarely at Taoiseach Brian Cowen for economic policies when he was Finance Minister. The reports will now be used by a commission of inquiry and an Oireachtas committee to look at what triggered the crash. But the inquiry will not be looking at a string of calamitous government budgetary policies to which Mr Cowen was central and it is not clear if the Taoiseach will be called before the committee. Former International Monetary Fund officials Klaus Regling and Max Watson said alarm bells should have sounded when the property boom and lending trends in the banking sector expanded -- as far back as 2003. They added that v...

Reports blame Cowen for stoking fires of 'meltdown'... TAOISEACH Brian Cowen's overheating of the economy and failure to deflate the property bubble when he was Finance Minister will be identified today as contributing to the banking crisis. The damning findings will be contained in two reports into the banking crisis, which senior coalition sources last night said were "devastating". Contrary to the Taoiseach's version of events a fortnight ago, where he sought to absolve himself of blame in a major speech on the economy, Mr Cowen's budgetary policies are singled out for criticism. The reports also: * Attack bank directors for allowing the financial crisis to develop. * Criticise the Financial Regulator for being too lax. * Find the Central Bank failed to take responsibility in the overall stability of the banking system. * Point out economic projections made by a number of organisations were wrong. The report by Central Bank governor Prof...

The victims of Ireland's economic collapse... Ireland was hailed during the boom years as a 'celtic tiger'. But now the government has had to introduce huge cuts to deal with its budget deficit. How is it affecting ordinary people? When Ann Moore returned to have breakfast with her family after a 12-hour night shift at a nursing home, she found riot police and bailiffs outside her home of 16 years. She and her husband, Christy, and their three children were being evicted. Despite climbing a ladder to the top of the house for six hours in a desperate attempt to thwart the bailiffs, the distressed care worker was eventually coaxed down and taken to hospital. Her home in the southern suburbs of Dublin was promptly boarded up. The Moores were badly in arrears, owing the council €10,000. For eight months, Ann had been paying back €50 on top of her €100 weekly rent. But in a country where 300,000 homes lie empty, the authorities decided to make the Moores homeless and punish them...

Government still avoiding public inquiry into the economic crash... The Government coalition parties did not want a comprehensive public inquiry into the reasons for the banking and economic crash. Instead, they have ended up reluctantly endorsing no less than three mini-inquiries into aspects of the banks here that will, of course, be conducted largely in private. In January, Taoiseach Brian Cowen endorsed setting up two inquiries - one into the evident failures of the financial regulator in recent years and the reckless amounts of money advanced by the banks. The new broom at the central bank, the TCD academic Patrick Honohan, said he favoured a banking inquiry. Governor Honohan then set out to report on the huge failings of the reformed organisation he now leads. Separately, two outsiders, the German Klaus Regling and Englishman Max Watson, were appointed to investigate the reckless lending by the bankers. Messrs Regling and Watson reportedly talked to a clutch of Ireland's form...

The widespread slashing of budget deficits could plunge Europe and the world into a second recession... Let's go over to Rome to hear the vote of the Italian jury. "€26bn in cuts over two years, including savage reductions in health spending and road building." And now it is over to Spain. "Good evening, Madrid. €15bn in spending cuts over two years? Thank you Madrid." Paris? "€5bn in cuts over two years." Athens? A punishing €30bn over three years, on top of previous cuts. Good evening to London, where a new coalition jury has just gathered. "£6.2bn of cuts in the present tax year with much, much more to come." The sound of screaming and howling that can be heard all over Europe resembles a European Cuts Contest. In the last two weeks, almost all EU governments have been slashing their budget deficits in order to prop up stockmarkets, blunt attacks on the euro and the pound and discourage the kind of speculation on sovereign, or national, de...