Daft Property - Irish Property News

Family fortunes fall €43,000 in two years... THE average family has lost €43,000 in the value of its pensions, shares, bank deposits and other assets in just two years, shocking new official figures reveal. At the height of the boom, in 2006, the average household had financial assets worth €95,200, but this has now nearly halved to just €51,500 today. The huge fall is highlighted in figures from the Central Statistics Office (CSO). It comes as workers have been hit hard by the introduction of savage income levies and pay cuts. The scale of the destruction of household assets is unprecedented in the history of the State. The losses arise from a sharp fall in the value of pensions, insurance policies, shares and bank deposits, according to the CSO. Stock market collapses over the past year have meant that almost all those with private pensions are now nursing huge losses. The only good news has come from a fall in prices – particularly mortgage costs. Collectively, the 1.5 million hous

Recession: the bad luck of the Irish... It was once hailed as the best place to live in the world. Now it’s in the grip of a terrifying economic storm. Could Ireland be the first euro country to go bust? In Ireland, the biggest funerals take place in the smallest churches. St Mochta’s, on Dublin’s western fringes, is little bigger than a front room. So many mourners turned up for the funeral of Patrick Rocca that they spilt out onto the pavement. Anyone who is anyone in modern Ireland was there, huddled together under a sky the colour of a day-old bruise. Politicians, pop stars, billionaire developers, horsemen and the sporting elite. Even the paparazzi. Rocca would have liked that. The 42-year-old was the self-styled poster boy for the new, resurgent Ireland, with a glamorous wife, private planes and helicopters, and a property business worth, at its peak in 2007, €450m. But one morning in January, he snapped. The first sign that anything was wrong was when neighbours saw him walking

House prices now falling faster than ever... HOUSE prices are falling more steeply than ever, as sellers discount heavily to try to secure a sale. Average prices nationally fell by 1.4pc in January, compared to falls of 0.8pc in October, 0.5pc in November and 0.9pc in December, according to the latest Permanent TSB/ESRI house price index. Prices were down by 9.8pc in the 12 months to January, compared to a fall of 9.1pc in the year to December. The average price paid for a house nationally last month was €258,006, down €3,500 on December 2008, and compared with a peak price of €311,078 in January 2007. The price falls have increased in recent months, said Permanent TSB manager of business strategy Niall O'Grady. "The pace of reductions is clearly accelerating due to deepening price discounting in the market in an attempt to clear existing stock," he said. Dublin house prices were worst hit, falling by 1.4pc in January, whereas there was a reduction of 0.6pc for houses out

2008 Review: NEGOTATING: It was the year everybody learnt how to haggle. Arthur Beesley reports... HERE'S A dilemma. After searching for that sleek new home, you've finally found just the place, done the deal, raised the money, surveyed to your satisfaction and readied your crew for the big move. All that remains is to ink the contract. Should you sign? Or should you refuse, warning that you will withdraw if the vendor won't cut their price? After all, there may be no one else in the race. And the vendor, for whatever reason, may be under pressure to complete the sale. Threatening to pull out now might endanger the deal, but a lower price would improve your fiscal position. Your call. You're a buyer in a rapidly declining market. Your job is secure, your bank is on board and you're ready to transact. You might see dishonour in seeking to snatch better terms after a "final" agreement is reached - or you may decide there's no place for moral quibbles in

Bubble bubble toil and trouble...

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

Property spend plunges €40bn... Irish spend on property has crashed by 60pc in 2008 compared to last year, with expenditure down by a crushing 73pc -- or around €40bn -- since the market peaked in 2006. Our property spend is forecast to fall to €15bn this year -- down from €45bn in 2007 and a heady €54.4bn in 2006, according to the latest 'Property Outlook' from Savills. Joan Henry, head of Research at Savills Ireland says that all sectors of the property market have been affected -- most obviously the new homes area. The total spend on new homes is expected to fall from an estimated €23bn in 2007 to just €6bn this year. Spend in the Irish investment market is expected to be down as much as 75pc from last year's €2bn. Spend on domestic land is expected to fall by a staggering 80pc. In the new homes as in the second hand market, prices have fallen by as much as 30pc this year and maybe more if looked at on an individual basis. "Successive price reductions this year, cou

The end of July reports show... Number signing on Live Register rises by 10,600 The rise in the number of people claiming unemployment benefits over the last year has increased at the fastest rate since records began over 40 years ago. In July, 10,600 people joined the Live Register bringing the seasonally adjusted total signing on to 226,000, on a seasonally adjusted basis, according to figures released by the Central Statistics Office this morning. The monthly increase is the second highest on record after March of this year. The number on the register is the highest in a decade. Last month’s increase lifted the standardised unemployment rate to 5.9 per cent, the CSO said. Over the last 12 months the number of people seeking unemployment benefits has risen by over a third with 63,647 people joining the register. In July 6,700 males and 3,800 females joined the register. Leo Varadkar, Fine Gael enterprise spokesman accused the Government of losing control of a deteriorating economic

It's Boom To Bust for Ireland - in fact there are so many reports out that it's hard to keep up with them all! Here's a section of an Irish Times report tôday: "HOUSE PRICES plummeted in April as developers began to offload a glut of unsold houses at knock-down prices. But potential buyers grew more nervous about committing to the plunging property market, new figures show. The drop in the price of new homes was almost twice the national rate, as builders were forced to discount prices in an effort to sell a backlog of houses and apartments rather than wait for a bounce in the market. But figures from the Central Bank show that consumers have so far proved reluctant to take them up on the offer in great numbers, with the growth in mortgage lending last month falling to its slowest rate since 1992. The monthly drop in house prices accelerated from 0.7 per cent in March to 1.1 per cent in April, making it increasingly unlikely that the housing market will turn around thi