Daft Property - Irish Property News

Revealed: huge inequity in rural/city property tax... Small apartments in capital will be charged more than rural 'mansions' THE gross inequity of Finance Minister Michael Noonan's property tax is today laid bare as it has emerged Dubliners on the lowest rung of the property ladder will pay higher property tax than the owners of large four-bedroom homes across rural Ireland. One-bed apartment owners in the golden triangle of south county Dublin will be forced to pay on average €315 in property tax, higher or equal than that paid by the owners of large detached houses in 19 other counties outside the capital, a Sunday Independent national property survey published today reveals. The figures have reignited angry calls this weekend from within Fine Gael to have the terms and scope of the property tax amended in the Finance Bill to address the "injustice inflicted on the people of Dublin". Dublin South TD Olivia Mitchell said: "What is happening is th...

Auctioneers to sell 14-house ghost estate in Co Kerry for just €50,000... DEPENDING on how deep your pockets are, you can pick up a ghost estate of 14 houses for only €50,000 or a Georgian House for €1m in the Allsop Space auction next month. A total of 90 properties are available at the event on July 6. Another unusual property on offer is Whites Castle, Athy, Co Kildare, a 15th century castle in the centre of the town, which also has a €50,000 guide price. The auctioneers are hoping to raise about €8m from the auction, which is below the €13m it achieved in its last auction in May. But then there are fewer lots this time and less valuable commercial properties. The ghost estate was conceived as a multi-million holiday home development at a pivotal point on Kerry's tourist trail. The 14-house lot at Annagh Banks in Castlemaine, Co Kerry, is about to be auctioned for only €50,000. It will be the first time that Allsop Space will include a full ghost estate as one lot at auction....

PLANNING AND THE RING OF KERRY: YOU CAN almost hear Jackie Healy-Rae saying it – “the plannin’ is terrible round here”... What some Kerry people mean by this, of course, is not that the landscape has been chewed up by haphazard housing, but that it can be damned difficult to get permission to build in certain areas. The stark statistics do not bear this out. Altogether, there are at least 34,000 one-off houses in the countryside, accounting for more than half of Kerry’s housing stock or seven per kilometre of public road. That’s an awful lot of houses strewn around the landscape of a county that was recently voted the “most scenic” in Ireland. Kerry’s senior planner Paul Stack has been outspoken about the “incredible damage” done by the proliferation of housing. After an absence of 14 years, he “couldn’t believe what I came back to, planning went out of control”. “It’s like the Celtic Tiger – we knew we were wrong and we kept going,” he told councillors in July. “Eighty per cen...

Try it, and if you like it, then buy it... Could a rent-to-buy housing scheme that helps first-time buyers get on the ladder help stabilise the new homes market, asks Róisín Carabine... A rent-to-buy scheme that allows prospective buyers to lease a new home with the option to buy later, using part of the rent towards the purchase, is growing in popularity with first-time buyers and developers as the credit crunch worsens and residential sales stagnate. Seán Power of Rent2Buy in Ballincollig, who first introduced the scheme to Ireland three years ago, says interest has more than doubled in the last few weeks, with 1,200 first-time buyers now registered on its database. "Of those who have recently signed up, the majority – around one in six – want to buy and live in and around Dublin. We've a number of buyers particularly interested in the Swords area," says Power, who plans to match 1,000 prospective buyers with homes in 2009. The scheme was first launched at The Beeches, ...