Daft Property - Irish Property News

House prices are now at 2003 levels as almost €100,000 has been wiped off the value of an average home. The price of property has plummeted by a massive 31.5pc since the peak in early 2007. Data published by the Permanent TSB/ESRI house price index outlined that the pace of property price declines escalated in 2009, with prices tumbling 18.5pc over the year compared to a fall of 9.1pc in 2008. The standard house price in the country is now €213,000 and the figures deteriorated as the year progressed, with an 8.5pc fall in average prices in the last three months of the past year. Niall O'Grady, general manager of business strategy at Permanent TSB, described 2009 as a "horrendous year" for the Irish housing market. "The pessimist will say there's worse to come. The optimist will argue that affordability has improved so much that things will stabilise soon. But the realist will admit we'll have to wait and see," he said. Separate research from Goodbody ha...

The fundamentals of the Irish housing market point to more sharp falls over the next two to three years... WITH HOUSE prices falling fast and likely, come the autumn, to fall even faster, no sane person would currently even think of buying a house. But this immediately raises the question of how long the crash will last. In other words, how long will it be before you can buy a house and not regret the decision for the rest of your life? Looking at past collapses in house prices abroad, we can see that they fall into two broad groups. In the first group, that includes Japan and Switzerland, prices suffered a long, slow decline of a few per cent a year for a decade. The second group, that includes the Netherlands and Finland, saw real prices halve in three to four years, and then fall gently for a few more years. If this second pattern repeats in Ireland, given that we are already one year into the crash, we can expect two to three more years of sharp falls. After that, prices should sta...