Daft Property - Irish Property News

House prices still falling - Dublin tops the list... House prices in Dublin are nearly 47pc off their peak in early 2007 compared with 39pc in the rest of the country, according to the Central Statistics Office. In the year to June, residential property prices at a national level fell by 12.9pc. This compares with an drop of 12.2% in May and a decrease of 12.4pc recorded in the twelve months to June 2010. In Dublin, residential property prices decreased by 2.4pc in June and were 12.6pc down compared with a year ago. House prices in the capital fell by 2.4pc last month and were 11.9pc lower on an annual basis. But economists believe that while the jobs market remains weak, within five years house prices should improve but very slowly. “The bottom line is that the property market remains very ‘soft’ at the moment,” said Alan McQuaid, chief economist at Bloxham Stockbrokers. “ But looking further ahead, we think house prices should increase on a five-year view as the labou...

'My business closed and I couldn't find long-term work'... LAST MONTH Helena gave birth to her daughter Anna. Four weeks later, she faces the possibility of eviction from a homeless hostel in Dublin with Anna, her two sons Ondrey and Patrick, and her husband Stefan. The family, who are originally from the Czech Republic, are just one of hundreds – and possibly thousands – of EU migrant families experiencing destitution as the recession tightens its grip. Stefan and his family arrived in Ireland in 2006 to find work and create a new life. He worked for several months as a self- employed painter, but work dried up as the economy slowed. He picked up sporadic work here and there but ended up relying on benefits. “My business closed and I couldn’t find any long-term work. They have now stopped our social welfare benefits and want to send us back to the Czech Republic,” says Stefan, who is a member of the Roma community. “I dont want to go back to the Czech Republic. T...

Names of top 10 borrowers in first wave of Nama transfers revealed... ANGLO IRISH Bank will transfer close to €10 billion in loans into the National Asset Management Agency (Nama), accounting for the largest amount owed by the top 10 developers moving to the agency in the coming weeks. The Irish Times has established the identities of the top borrowers being moved in the first wave of transfers to the State agency. They are developers Liam Carroll; Bernard McNamara; Sean Mulryan of Ballymore; financier Derek Quinlan; Paddy McKillen, owner of the Jervis Street Shopping Centre; Treasury Holdings, which is owned by Johnny Ronan and Richard Barrett; Cork developer Michael O’Flynn; Joe O’Reilly, the developer behind the Dundrum Shopping Centre in Dublin; Dublin builder Gerry Gannon, co-owner of the K Club golf resort in Co Kildare; and Galway businessman Gerry Barrett, owner of Ashford Castle in Co Mayo and G Hotel in Galway. More than €16 billion in loans linked to the top 10 are being mov...

Vested interests: 38 politicians voting on Nama have extensive property portfolios... Almost 40 of the politicians who will vote on the critical Nama legislation designed to clean up the banks' toxic loans to property developers have extensive property interests both here and abroad themselves. The current register of interests, in which politicians are legally obliged to reveal any outside commercial interests, shows that, excluding the hundreds of acres of farmland owned by politicians, 38 TDs and senators have substantial development land and commercial property holdings. These range from the relatively modest three properties held by Taoiseach Brian Cowen, including one in Leeds, to Fine Gael's Alan Shatter, who lists joint ownership with an "other" of 14 investment properties in Dublin, London and Florida. Of the 38 politicians, 17 could be considered to have significant interests which, during the property boom, would have provided a comfortable income on their ...

It's time to give Lisbon lies the red card... Michael O'Leary might be an obnoxious prat, but you have to give him credit for his hard neck. When Michael is trying to put one over he just looks you right in the eye and delivers his baloney with a wink and a smile. Perhaps experience has taught him that few are immune to his brand of leprechaun charm. "Hey, begob, sure 'tis only me, Mickey O -- pulling another fast one on ye, so I am!" If we're going to be smothered in bullshit in the weeks to come (and we are, dear reader, we bloody are), at least O'Leary's variety provides a degree of entertainment -- and we'll get to Mick's bullshit in a moment. There's a blizzard of the stuff headed our way, the intent being to leave us overwhelmed, jaded and ready to obediently swallow not one but two bitter pills prescribed by Mr Cowen's government. Nama is the bigger of the bitter pills -- it's approximately the size of a grand piano -- a mass...

Why do we always get things wrong? I know, it's the Brits, the Brits, the Brits... As this State flounders towards collapse again, let's ask: why do we always get things wrong? Sure, I know three reliable answers: the Brits, the Brits and the Brits again. Indeed, entire university faculties are given over to discourses on Hibernian victimhood, with self-pity intellectualised through the impenetrable verbal mud of Foucault, Derrida and Fanon. This whingeing school of thought has an academic brand name, Field Day, and a caste of articulate laureates who specialise in the plaints of our woebegone Irish identity . Yet no one considers the possibility that there might be something genetically askew with too many Irish people for us to create an ordered, predictable society that does not fall apart every 15 years or so. So, has our still-small population been cursed with some genetic fault from our founding population which came from Spain 4,000 years ago? A baleful genetic legacy ne...

Crazy to sell in a buyer's market? If you are considering selling property but are afraid it might be neither nor viable nor sensible at this time, you may be pleasantly surprised to discover that there is a market out there – you just have to know your audience and what appeals to them... If you have a property that you are keen to sell, you may be debating the wisdom of doing so at a time when prices are dipping and so many others are holding back, but though it may feel like a lonely and risky path to take now, you would not be the only person in the country doing it. "We're seeing a mix of people selling at the moment," says Gillian Flanagan of Felicity Fox Auctioneers in Dublin. "We have a lot of people trading up, particularly young families with children who have outgrown the space they're in, people who need to move because their employment has changed location and people from different countries who are moving home. At the same time, a lot of people ...

Best to ignore the cheerleaders for the property sector... HAPPY new year? Not really. The banks are at death’s door. Unemployment is rocketing. Cuts much more severe than those proposed in the recent budget are inevitable. The recession is deepening, with fears that Ireland is on the verge of a so-called ‘lost decade’ growing increasingly realistic. We’re up the creek. Auctioneers and developers, however, have a different vision for 2009, one where ever more affordable homes will be snapped up by a willing populace. After all, construction firms cannot cut prices further as they are “down to their bottom line” on prices, according to one builder recently. Indeed, those who are “stupidly waiting” for prices to fall further should cop themselves on and realise that prices are bottoming. This stupidity has been disappointing developers for some time now. In August, property tycoon Derek Quinlan noted that first-time buyers must be given the confidence to buy as “negative media comm...

Talking Property... Give them what they want - a bargain... THE TIME has come to swallow your pride and scream from the rooftops. "WE NEED TO SELL - AND URGENTLY" Just as last season's designer garments fail to excite the fashionistas, your home, regardless of how highly it may once have been rated, will not now excite the chattering classes. Why? Because property is no longer considered a fashionable topic of conversation. In fact, it's a topic to be avoided at all costs these days. It is, as they say, a sore subject. However, on the bright side, the property website Daft has noticed a 35 per cent increase in browsers to their internet site this September compared with September 2007. Now, perhaps they are all nervous homeowners, checking daily to see by how much their property has dropped in value. Or perhaps there are a lot of window-shoppers out in cyberspace at the moment. But along with the above mentioned, I suspect that there may also be a number of potential ...

'Hot' buyers wait in the wings for market to bottom out... ESTATE AGENTS who feel they may never complete another good sale should be cheered by some new research from Sherry Fitz-Gerald. A survey carried out by the company suggests there are over 650 buyers with an estimated €831 million to spend in the Dublin residential market - as soon as prices have stabilised. Group chief executive Mark Fitz-Gerald sees prices bottoming out in the next six months, with prices having already dropped by 35 per cent in some neighbourhoods. The survey carried out among the company's branches has identified 656 "hot buyers" in the Dublin area; people who have expressed a strong interest in buying in the coming months. An additional 74 buyers are poised to spend €26 million in Cork city, according to the agency's research. Sherry FitzGerald found that 65 buyers are waiting in the wings to buy property in Ballsbridge, with a collective budget of €129 million. In the area stretc...

140,000 homeowners 'have fallen into negative equity'... Jim Power, chief economist with Friends First, said: "I reckon the majority of first-time buyers who bought into the market over the last three years are in negative equity." Analysing the gains made up to the peak of the housing boom, and the losses since, Mr Power said negative equity was affecting "at least 140,000 people and that's rising by the day". He warned that, in terms of the recession, "we haven't seen anything yet" and predicted the numbers in negative equity could reach 200,000 by the end of 2009. Latest Census figures show there were 570,000 residential mortgage holders in 2006, with tens of thousands of new mortgages taken out since. So the continuing decline in house prices means that one in three mortgage holders are likely find themselves trapped in a home worth less than the loan they took out to pay for it. With €125bn owed on Irish mortgages, homeowners facing r...

'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...