Daft Property - Irish Property News

Scramble to stem panic after new bailout gaffe... Alarm after Varadkar claims State will need further loans. THE Government last night scrambled to allay fears that a second bailout is on the cards, following damaging comments by a cabinet minister. Transport Minister Leo Varadkar sparked alarm and confusion when he said the Government may need to get new loans from the European Union and IMF next year. Ahead of an anticipated backlash from investors this morning, Finance Minister Michael Noonan's officials insisted the Coalition's firm plan was still to return to borrowing on the bond markets in 2012. The Department of Finance stressed there was no change in the Government's plans, as Mr Varadkar's comments were reported around the world. Mr Varadkar was also left backpedalling after he was reported as saying: "I think it's very unlikely we'll be able to go back (to borrowing on the bond markets) next year. I think it might take a bit longer......

Repossessions to surge as mortgage crisis deepens... 25,000 families now more than a year behind on their repayments. MORE than 25,000 families in Ireland are in turmoil this weekend, living with the terror of being more than a year behind on their mortgages and past the point where they can ever hope to pay back the money they owe. The shocking finding follows an analysis of figures compiled by the Central Bank of Ireland and released without fanfare during the high profile visit of Queen Elizabeth and on the day that former Taoiseach Dr Garret FitzGerald died. The figures show that more than 35,000 people are now over six months in arrears on mortgages worth more than €7bn. But leading mortgage expert Ciaran Phelan of the Irish Brokers' Association has analysed the figures and says the situation is even worse than that portrayed by the regulatory authority. He says even a "back-of-the-envelope" assessment of the latest statistics indicates that 25,000 of tho...

Distressed property auction by Savills... AROUND 100 distressed investment properties, mainly in the greater Dublin area, are to be auctioned on a single day in September. The move by Savills Ireland to kick-start both the residential and commercial investment markets is expected to generate sales of over €20 million. Ronan O’Driscoll, of Savills Ireland, said most buyers at the September 29th auction were likely to be cash-rich investors happy to put their money into property now that values had fallen sharply. In the past, investors banked on capital appreciation but it was now all about rental return and in many cases buyers could expect yields of 9 to 10 per cent compared to 3.5 per cent on bank deposits. The announcement that Savills will be staging Ireland’s “biggest ever property auction” comes after last month’s successful auction of distressed properties in Dublin by British auctioneer Allsops and its Irish affiliate Space. They sold 80 of the 81 lots in a packed Shelb...

Nama's equity plan 'is doomed by ECB rates'... Hobbs rubbishes scheme to protect homeowners, insisting any progress would be wiped out by a few interest hikes. A proposal by Nama to protect homebuyers from negative equity has been dismissed as an attempt to "manipulate property prices" and will not work in the face of rising interest rates imposed by the ECB, leading economic adviser Eddie Hobbs says. "They're trying to put a floor on the market. You would have to say that it's a positive attempt, but the history of economics is littered with various attempts to manipulate property prices. If interest rates rise, it doesn't matter what kind of floor you try to put on the market, because you'll be overwhelmed by it. "I'm in Germany at the moment and the place is absolutely hopping. The German economy is booming and inflation is rising in Europe. The Central Bank in Frankfurt is going to raise interest rates to protect the Germa...

Number of homeowners in arrears soars to 50,000... THE number of homeowners in arrears on their mortgages has jumped by 5,100 to almost 50,000 in the first three months of the year. The arrears figure represents 6.3pc of the 782,429 residential mortgage accounts, according to the Central Bank. Meanwhile, another 36,600 homeowners, who are not in arrears, have made arrangements with their lender to reduce their repayments. This means that a total of 86,211 homeowners -- 11pc of all mortgage-holders -- were struggling to meet their repayments in March, the Central Bank said. While the trend is worrying, eight out of every nine mortgage holders are still meeting their original repayment commitments. Frank Conway of personal finance website MoneyCoach added that although the growth in the arrears was unfortunate, there was no rapid deterioration in the rise in rate of arrears. "These latest statistics largely include the effects of the introduction of the universal socia...

Barack Obama and the Queen to visit Ireland during its time of despair... The financial rescue package for Ireland has been a national shame – so why are there no barricades on the streets of Dublin? Strange times in Ireland; a British queen and an American president staging back-to-back visits this week and next. But what is everybody talking about? It's the economy, stupid. Yes, the economy is really the only topic on the front pages, on the TV, on the lips of the subdued window-shoppers up and down Dublin's Grafton Street in turbulent May sunshine and showers. The Queen, who is said to love facts and figures, may or may not learn on her visit that Ireland has 14% unemployment, that its economy will grow by only 0.6% this year, that house prices have fallen 12% this year and 40% since the 2007 peak, with the decline accelerating. She may or may not discover that Ireland has suffered the biggest decline in educational standards of any developed nation in the last deca...

EU loan is no bailout, it's financial bullying. Should we be taking our case on the EC's extortionate profit margin to the Court of Justice... SOME members of the European Council are exploiting our crisis in order to profit at our expense. If the interest rates on the EU loans are not reduced, the Irish public will suffer unnecessarily while our European partners profit from these loans. Last January, the European Financial Stabilisation Mechanism charged Ireland an interest rate of 5.51 per cent for money that it borrowed at 2.59 per cent. A month later, the European Financial Stabilisation Fund charged Ireland an interest rate of 5.9 per cent for money that it borrowed at 2.89 per cent. On this basis, the EFSF earns a profit margin of 3.01 per cent and the EFSM earns a profit margin of 2.93 per cent. These margins are draconian. The majority of the interest that Ireland pays is not used to pay for the EU's borrowing costs. It is excessive profit for the countries...

Market hasn't hit bottom despite 40pc drop in four years, say economists... HOUSE prices are likely to continue to fall for another two years, analysts predicted yesterday. It came as a new, official index of residential property prices from the Central Statistics Office showed a 12pc fall in the past year. It also found that the pace of decrease has picked up in the past two months Prices are down 40pc from their peak level in 2007. Dublin has suffered much higher losses in value, with the crash cutting prices almost in half. In the rest of the country they are down by a third. The fall of 47pc in the capital contrasts with a plunge of 35pc elsewhere. Sharp drops in prices were recorded in February and March. The fall of 1.7pc in each month was the highest since July 2009. However, these decreases mainly reflect sales agreed last November when the €85bn IMF/EU bailout was agreed. The fact that the country was being bailed out meant that the only property transacti...

Apartments built on banks of famed river lie in ruin... AN apartment block built on the banks of a famed river at the height of the Celtic Tiger frenzy, has fallen into a state of dangerous neglect. Locals in the village of Ballisodare, Co Sligo, are demanding action to make safe the derelict building that stands in the heart of the village. They say it's a tragic relic of the building boom and is a haunt for late night drinking and anti-social behaviour. The Mill Apartments, a colossal 74-unit complex on the site of an old mill, was developed by Michael Fitzgerald Construction Ltd, at an estimated cost of €12m and promoted as "a property that simply has it all". Close-by is the location on the banks of the Owenmore River where poet WB Yeats is widely believed to have penned 'The Sally Gardens'. When the state-of-the-art apartments first came on the market in 2006, two-bedroom units were selling from €320,000. But before most were even occupied, tena...

Distressed property auction promises to offload €20m in stock at '80s prices... ANOTHER distressed property sale will take place next month with almost €20m worth of housing stock on offer. The sale -- to be held in Cork on June 24 -- features houses from across Munster, some at discounts of up to 60pc, and is expected to emulate the success of the first distressed property disposal in Dublin. Organising auctioneer Noel Forde said the sale represents a "once in a lifetime chance" to obtain properties at 1980s prices. The auction follows the success of a discounted prop-erty sale in Dublin last month which saw deals worth €14.8m struck in just six hours. Mr Forde, of GMAC Properties in Castletownbere in west Cork, said he expects similar levels of interest. "There is money out there and people are simply waiting for the right time to buy and the right property to invest in," he said. "There was nothing moving in the property market for us and ...

Full employment to bust in four years... IT took just four years for the country to go from full employment to a situation where one-in-seven people is out of work. As recently as 2007 unemployment stood at just 4.6pc -- less than one in 20 of the workforce. That has trebled to 14.6pc today. It may come as a shock to Celtic Tiger cubs, but you only have to go back to 1994 to find a similar proportion of people out of work. Back then, the unemployment rate had been bobbing around 14pc for over a decade -- down only slightly from its peak of 17pc in the mid-1980s. The difference between then and now is that a staggering 440,000 people are signing on for the dole today. Even at its worst in 1993 there were fewer than 300,000 people on the Live Register. Then came the boom and for over a decade Ireland became a Mecca for jobseekers, both international workers and its own returning emigrants who pushed the workforce to a once unthinkable 2.1 million people. Dole queues fell to...

Drugs, drink and the stench of urine are alive, alive oh... Queen Elizabeth and Barack Obama are on their way to Dublin, but we won't be be in a hurry to show them sections of the city centre where drug dealers, drunks and beggars rule the roost... It is a gloriously sunny May morning in Dublin and there's considerable drama happening outside Ireland's national theatre, The Abbey. A crowd of vagrants -- their faces ravaged by years of drug addiction -- roar obscenities at each other. They seem to be arguing over the final dregs of cider in a large plastic bottle. One of them -- a woman who looks like she's in her 40s but is probably much younger -- swings a punch at an especially emaciated man and keels over in the effort. The commotion lasts for five minutes until they split into two groups -- the smaller bunch making their way unsteadily towards Eden Quay, the other along Marlborough Street in a northbound direction. They leave behind a trail of litter -- includ...

'Ireland is b***ixed' says hairdresser to the stars Marshall as iconic salon shuts... Iconic Dublin hair stylist David Marshall, has shut his flagship salon on Dawson Street after 30 years. The salon, which opened in 1981, closed for business after struggling with high overheads. Mr Marshall blamed the salon's closure on the pressures of high rents and overheads at a time when business was retracting. "It's an awful lot of pressure on small businesses," he said. "You are going to see a lot more closures over the next couple of years." Mr Marshall, one of Ireland's most famous stylists, is now focussing on the David Marshall Academy and School, where he will still be on hand to tend the locks of his long-standing clients. He continued: "It's a sad day but the whole country is b***ixed," he said. "In my mind there is no give for small businesses anymore." He said there will be some job "casualties" wh...

Stealth charges force us to suffer a lifetime of levies. Whether it's pensions, insurance or just going to the shop, we're all being taxed to the hilt... STEALTH taxes have us in their icy grip from cradle to grave -- from the €10 to register a birth to the €10 death-certificate charge when we finally leave a life of levies and hidden charges. At all points between we are bombarded with demands for money from the State and private companies acting at its behest. There is no escape. All we can do is bend the knee to our revenue-raising overlords and watch as the money we earn, already taxed to the hilt at source, is taxed again and again as it leaves our purse or pocket. And a range of increased charges is on its way. The levy for sending waste to landfill will more than double between now and 2012. From September -- it will rise from the current €30 per tonne of waste to €50 a tonne, increasing to €65 in July 2012, and €75 in July 2013. Do we really think the private ...

Ireland's future depends on breaking free from bailout... OPINION: Ireland is heading for bankruptcy, which would be catastrophic for a country that trades on its reputation as a safe place to do business. WITH THE Irish Government on track to owe a quarter of a trillion euro by 2014, a prolonged and chaotic national bankruptcy is becoming inevitable. By the time the dust settles, Ireland’s last remaining asset, its reputation as a safe place from which to conduct business, will have been destroyed. Ireland is facing economic ruin. While most people would trace our ruin to to the bank guarantee of September 2008, the real error was in sticking with the guarantee long after it had become clear that the bank losses were insupportable. Brian Lenihan’s original decision to guarantee most of the bonds of Irish banks was a mistake, but a mistake so obvious and so ridiculous that it could easily have been reversed. The ideal time to have reversed the bank guarantee was a few month...

Eurozone growing ever more fragile... THE EU united last night in its denials of reports that Greece was preparing to leave the eurozone. These ranged from the EU Commission to the German government to the Greek finance ministry itself. Other governments across the 17-member currency union were also prepared to dismiss the report. Yet the mere hint of such a move was enough to push the single currency down almost 1.5pc -- its biggest drop against the dollar in a year. The report, carried in the German magazine 'Der Spiegel', suggested the Greeks were looking to leave the euro because their debts had become unsustainable. The fact that a leading and reputable German news magazine could suggest such an eventuality simply highlights just how fragile the eurozone has become. It also highlights just how inadequate the European response has been to this economic crisis which began in January 2010. The European approach has been to place a sticking plaster over the problem -- an...

National group to oversee efforts to deal with ghost estates... A NATIONAL co-ordination group is to be established within weeks to oversee action by local authorities in dealing with the most problematic ghost housing estates, according to Minister of State for Housing and Planning Willie Penrose. Addressing the Irish Planning Institute’s annual conference in Galway yesterday, he said one of his top priorities was that “clear, decisive and proactive actions are taken to progressively resolve the issues with unfinished housing developments”. It has emerged that the National Asset Management Agency (Nama) has 10 per cent of about 150 of the worst ghost estates that are unfinished and pose health and safety issues. The vast majority of the ghost estates that require the most work were financed by the foreign-owned banks operating in Ireland. About 28 per cent of the loans at Nama relate to land and development and about 16 per cent are in the Dublin area, where there is a great...

Millions wiped off value of land in dezoning... DEVELOPERS have taken massive hits on the value of their land banks, as one-in-three local authorities have dezoned land earmarked for development. The moved has wiped hundreds of millions off the value of land across the country -- with taxpayers facing a massive bill for NAMA loans linked to land returning to agricultural use. Planning Minister Willie Penrose said yesterday that 12 of the State's 34 local authorities had made changes to their development plans which has resulted in thousands of sites now being classed as unsuitable for development. Last year, local authorities were ordered to dezone, rezone or forbid development on massive land banks to comply with tough new planning guidelines which set out where houses and commercial units could be built. The move came because councillors had zoned enough land during the boom years to build more than a million homes that were not needed. Councils had previously zoned m...

Homes beside Google down 65% from peak... Over 800 people on list for 26 apartments and houses beside Google HQ with prices starting at €155,000 APARTMENTS and townhouses beside Google’s headquarters in Barrow Street, Dublin 4, go on sale today with prices starting at €155,000 – down an average 65.5 per cent from their peak values in 2006. Twenty of the Liam Carroll-built apartments along with six townhouses in the popular development are being sold by receiver Grant Thorton through sales agents HT Meagher O’Reilly New Homes. In an unusual move, Ulster Bank which financed Liam Carroll to build the development, is to offer mortgages for the purchase of the units, and will consider applications from investors as well as owner occupiers. Until now banks have been refusing mortgages to investors. However, David Browne of HT Meagher O’Reilly expects the units to sell mainly to cash buyers. The agency already has a database of over 800 potential buyers for the one, two and three-...

EU now being threatened by its own central bank... IN the late 1980s, while studying at the College of Europe in Bruges, I was struck by just how pragmatic the European project appeared to be. Many of the lecturers and professors were deep EU "insiders" -- distinguished academics from all over Europe who had excelled in their own fields. They seemed to be the pinnacle of cosmopolitan sophistication, enlightened and aware of the various strands that had to be pulled together carefully to make the EU work. Back then, any moves towards more European power were characterised by patience and prescience -- a little move here, a pull back there, never overplaying the hand and, above all, the entire process seemed to be non-ideological. Over the past 10 years, this has changed. European wisdom has been replaced by EU dogma; lateral thinking exchanged for tunnel vision. The ECB is to blame. Those who, during the boom, pointed out that there was a central problem at the heart...