Daft Property - Irish Property News

British housing associations may buy ghost estates... HOUSING ASSOCIATIONS in Britain are considering buying ghost estates in Ireland after meeting former minister for housing Michael Finneran last month before he left office. Mr Finneran travelled to Britain with representatives of the Housing and Sustainable Communities Agency in a bid to get them involved in his social housing leasing initiative. The initiative was introduced by Mr Finneran in 2009 as a solution to the lack of funds available to local authorities to build social housing. But take-up by Irish organisations has been slow. Under the scheme, British associations would buy ghost estates in Ireland from developers or from Nama and they would rent the properties out to provide social housing in Ireland for the estimated 130,000 households on waiting lists. In return, local authorities would pay the associations 92 per cent of market rent for the property and they would also receive a rent from the tenant. Histo

We've never had it so bad, ESRI warns... Recession worst since the 1930s, think-tank reveals IRELAND is suffering the worst recession of any advanced country since the 1930s, the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) warns in a grim analysis of the economy. Unemployment could rise above 500,000 as national income (GNP) is forecast to fall by 14pc over the three years from 2008 to 2010. The fall in national income beats the 11pc decline in the Finnish crisis of 1990 to 1993, when the collapse of the Soviet Union suddenly deprived Finland of its main market. The ESRI believes this year will be the worst of the crisis, with income per person plunging by more than 9pc in real terms. But there will be further decline next year, with a 1.2pc fall in national income. The stark outline comes as new figures will today show that the rate of increase in unemployment has slowed, but that 384,000 people are signing on. The CSO statistics reveal that an additional 11,000 signed on the li