Daft Property - Irish Property News

New-house completions at lowest since 1970s... HOUSE completions are to fall to their lowest level since records began in the 1970s. The number of new homes expected to be finished next year will be 10,000, whereas even during the recession-hit 1980s the lowest number of completions was 15,654 in 1988. A gloomy economic forecast from the Department of the Environment says it will be another two years before we see a return to economic growth. And it says that the estimated 150,000 unsold homes currently on the market will discourage new building activity for the next four years. The Construction Industry Outlook 2009-2011, conducted by DKM Economic Consultants for the department, finds that the current downturn in the industry is the most severe on record and that the number employed in the industry could fall to just 138,000 by the end of the year. This is half the number employed in 2006 at the height of the boom when 267,000 people worked in construction. New figures from the Depart

Can we remake Ireland's future? The year ended with the certainty that the global crisis is not a short-term glitch, and that Ireland is suffering more than most. Will 2009 bring the shift in Irish political culture needed to bring us back from the brink? LATE LAST YEAR, when the rock band Tindersticks played in Dublin, they finished their set with The Not Knowing , a haunting ballad of love and denial. The words seemed especially apt and particularly poignant: "The not knowing is easy/ The suspecting, that's okay/ Just don't tell me for certain/ That our love has gone away." Replace "love" with "boom" and the sad song would be a three-hankie job. This time last year, the not knowing still came easy and even the strong suspicion that the good times were definitively over could be drowned in denial, excess or the mellow lullabies of "soft landings". Now we know for certain, and if there is to be comfort in 2009, we have to find it in t

THE average house has lost almost €46,000 of its property-boom value. Prices fell in October for the 20th month in a row. House prices are now down 15pc from their peak of January/February 2007, according to the latest figures from the Permanent TSB/ESRI house price index. Over the past year prices are down 10.2pc after average prices nationally showed a fall of 0.8pc in October, a marginally smaller drop than in the previous two months. However, many economists feel that price declines have been more severe, with a number of estate agencies estimating that prices are already 30pc off their peak. And new figures out yesterday from the Central Bank seemed to back this up. They showed that residential mortgage lending is at its lowest level in 22 years. Permanent TSB executive Niall O'Grady yesterday defended the accuracy of the house price index. "The index remains as valid as it was when house prices were rising," he said. However, he admitted that there was a three-month