Daft Property - Irish Property News

...echoes of the 1930s Midwest in the sorry mortgage belt tales of our estate agents... "And there on the Texas plains right in the dead centre of the dust bowl, with the oil boom over and the wheat blowed out and the hard-working people just stumbling about, bothered with mortgages, debts, bills, sickness, worries of every blowing kind, I seen there was plenty to make up songs about. . ." Woody Guthrie IRELAND is increasingly becoming a 21st century mirror of America's Midwest in the 1930s , a region that became known as the Dust Bowl after a series of devastating droughts, windstorms and economic depression tore out its very soul. In Ireland today, however, we have no Woody Guthrie, no one to sing us through this mess, no one who can somehow lift us out of the worst of times. And who tells these tales of sorrow better than those in the Irish property market? Once the jewel in the Irish economic crown, it now lies forlorn, a victim not only of its own success but of the

House building crash helped spark sudden rise in jobless figures... HOUSE building crashed after the Christmas holidays last year, new CSO figures show -- helping to explain the sudden rise in unemployment during 2008. Output in house construction was at the lowest level since the current statistics began in 2000. It was also 20pc less than the previous low point eight years before. House building slumped more than l30pc on the previous quarter, as builders left sites closed after the New Year break. This left the volume of output down 38pc on the same period of 2007. The value of houses built was down 35pc, suggesting little change in prices over the 12 months. Non-residential building was up almost 9pc compared with 2007, and the value of the buildings was 14pc greater. This gain left total construction down almost 22pc on the previous year. But Rossa White, economist at Davy Research, said the figures seemed to be saying that non-house building was already slowing fast in 2007. &quo

One of my favourite sites about what's happening with the Irish Property scene is The Property Pin - thepropertypin.com. "... thepropertypin.com was established to discuss the existence of a damaging speculative price bubble in the Irish housing market" ... The Property Pin is " not here to cheerlead the crash but rather to illuminate, to provide balanced discussion and to help prevent another property bubble from occurring in the future." A great forum - well worth a visit!

Ireland Property - Daft Property! "There are two tellings to every story"... Story 1 is the average punters view: House prices in Ireland are dropping dramatically..."For Sale" signs are springing up everywhere like some prolific new species (albeit genetically modified .) The buy property and become rich fantasy is fading fast into the mists, like so many other myths and legends. For some negative equity is now a reality. The building industry is crumbling. Unemployment rising. Repossessions increasing... Story 2 is the vested interests view: The Irish property market is only adjusting slightly...There's no need for panic...The prices drops are good for homeowners as they will produce a more balanced and stable market. There's now good value for buyers etc. "A little of anything isn't worth a pin; but a wee bit of sense is worth a lot"... Property Bubble? The Irish property market has enjoyed unprecedented growth every year since 1993. To sta