Daft Property - Irish Property News

‘Hope to be bankrupt for Christmas’: Irish mortgage debtors see insolvency as way out... With one in five mortgage payments being overdue in Ireland and families across the country having their homes repossessed, some of the debtors are hoping for bankruptcy to do away with their endless fear of losing their properties. Julia Godsill, a Dubliner, can hardly hold back her tears, when retelling her not uncommon mortgage saga to RT’s Tesa Arcilla. When she bought her house the Irish economy was still the “Celtic Tiger” enjoying its boom time. After the credit crunch of 2008, Julia could only watch as her mortgage became too high for her to be able to pay, while the value of her house itself went down. “I ended up with a cash offer for 500,000. This was in 2011. And I was delighted. But the banks refused to accept the offer because the mortgage was 800,000 climbing with arrears. They preferred to bring me to court, and repossess the house instead.” The Central Bank of Ireland figu...

Ireland’s property boom was the biggest, and our crash the most violent. In a week that brought news of a further drop in house prices, Economics Editor DAN O’BRIEN explains why the market won’t recover any time soon... ‘THE FUNDAMENTALS of the property market are sound, going forward.” This mantra was repeated constantly during the boom by those who believed that no risks were attached to soaring property prices. If any reminder was needed of how badly wrong this view was, it came this week with new official figures showing yet another fall in residential property prices in August. This, according to statisticians, brought the total decline since the property-price peak, in late 2007, to more than 43 per cent, one of the biggest drops in the world. The latest figures from the auctioneer Sherry FitzGerald, also published this week, are worse still, suggesting that average prices are down by a huge 58 per cent since the bubble burst. The belief that property was a one-way bet b...

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...

Real austerity brings inclusivity, inspiration and invention... CULTURE SHOCK: The Cultúrlann in Derry has been shortlisted for the architectural Oscars, the Stirling Prize. With its modest design, it shows good aesthetics make for good politics. Photo - Irish Times MODESTY AND restraint are not the virtues one associates with Irish culture in the Celtic Tiger years. But one of the finest pieces of contemporary Irish design is brilliant in part because it is contained, understated, and so supremely self-confident that it doesn’t have to shout. John Tuomey and Sheila O’Donnell’s Cultúrlann building in Derry is on the shortlist for the architectural Oscars, the Stirling Prize. I was in it for the first time last weekend and it deserves all the praise and prizes it can get. Apart from its own merits, it points towards a kind of genuine austerity aesthetic, a way for Irish art to be modest and serious without being dull and impoverished. The Cultúrlann is the baby of the Stirling s...

Euro dream threatens to become nightmare... ANALYSIS: LAST WEEKEND the world’s attention was on Washington DC as America’s politicians peered into the abyss of sovereign default. On Sunday they stepped back. This weekend attention is on Rome and Madrid. Politicians in those two capitals are sliding towards the same abyss. But there is a big difference between the US and the Mediterranean countries. In America, that country’s leaders walked voluntarily to the edge of the chasm for political reasons. They were not beaten to that point by the bond market. Political leaders in Italy and Spain are in an altogether more difficult position. They are being propelled towards the precipice because confidence in their economies is draining away. They are clutching desperately for something to halt the slide. But it appears ever less likely that they can save themselves. With each passing week it seems increasingly clear that Europe is coming to a fork in the road: one route leads to deepe...

House prices still falling - Dublin tops the list... House prices in Dublin are nearly 47pc off their peak in early 2007 compared with 39pc in the rest of the country, according to the Central Statistics Office. In the year to June, residential property prices at a national level fell by 12.9pc. This compares with an drop of 12.2% in May and a decrease of 12.4pc recorded in the twelve months to June 2010. In Dublin, residential property prices decreased by 2.4pc in June and were 12.6pc down compared with a year ago. House prices in the capital fell by 2.4pc last month and were 11.9pc lower on an annual basis. But economists believe that while the jobs market remains weak, within five years house prices should improve but very slowly. “The bottom line is that the property market remains very ‘soft’ at the moment,” said Alan McQuaid, chief economist at Bloxham Stockbrokers. “ But looking further ahead, we think house prices should increase on a five-year view as the labou...

Bertie bags $40,000 - for tips on Celtic Tiger 'success'... FORMER Taoiseach Bertie Ahern is charging American companies a fortune to present a new lecture -- about how he transformed our economy in the Celtic Tiger boom. The man targeted by many as the architect of our crippling recession, is charging more than $40,000 (€27,554) a time for speaking engagements with the elite Washington Speakers Bureau. During the lecture, Mr Ahern offers tips to bosses of leading firms on how to be competitive. The former Fianna Fail leader has been employed for a number of years as one of the highest-paid speakers with the bureau -- whose motto is 'Connecting you with the world's greatest minds' . In his latest lecture -- entitled 'Prime Minister as CEO' -- he tells listeners to adopt Ireland's Celtic Tiger as a model of economic growth. Last night it was described as "bewildering". Bosses of the bureau refused to reveal the number of times Mr A...

Ireland left to count the true cost of euro dream... An exclusionary venture that values banks ahead of ordinary people – this is not what we signed up for. JUST THREE years ago we were being bamboozled into voting for the Lisbon Treaty, the then latest stage in the creation of a wondrous European project that would consolidate peace on the continent and promote yet further wealth creation. It would also give Europe a voice in world affairs corresponding to its financial clout, give greater administrative cohesion to the decision-making processes in the union and incorporate the industries of war (defence industries) into the corporate structure of the union. The Lisbon Treaty had arisen from the refusal of the French and Dutch electorates to approve a draft European constitution. The new treaty was devised to give effect to the purpose of the draft constitution, while avoiding the tiresome ordeal of obtaining electoral approval anywhere, except Ireland. The Irish electorate, a...

Celtic Tiger developers trying to scam Nama – Taoiseach Taoiseach Enda Kenny has declared concerns that developers could be buying back assets seized by Nama at knockdown prices. Mr Kenny said he had some indications that boom-time speculators who could not repay massive loans - now tied to the taxpayer - were attempting to repurchase their properties at their current prices. Just over a week ago, the state toxic assets agency dismissed allegations repeated by a Fianna Fail senator about the practice. Mark Daly had claimed the taxpayer was picking up the bill, running into hundreds of thousands of euro, for the plunging loan values while those who borrowed the money regained their properties at a fraction of the original price. Speaking at the British Irish Parliamentary Assembly in Cork, Mr Kenny signalled his intention to meet finance minister Michael Noonan about the issue. "I have had some indications of attempts to acquire property that was taken from developers thr...

Drugs, drink and the stench of urine are alive, alive oh... Queen Elizabeth and Barack Obama are on their way to Dublin, but we won't be be in a hurry to show them sections of the city centre where drug dealers, drunks and beggars rule the roost... It is a gloriously sunny May morning in Dublin and there's considerable drama happening outside Ireland's national theatre, The Abbey. A crowd of vagrants -- their faces ravaged by years of drug addiction -- roar obscenities at each other. They seem to be arguing over the final dregs of cider in a large plastic bottle. One of them -- a woman who looks like she's in her 40s but is probably much younger -- swings a punch at an especially emaciated man and keels over in the effort. The commotion lasts for five minutes until they split into two groups -- the smaller bunch making their way unsteadily towards Eden Quay, the other along Marlborough Street in a northbound direction. They leave behind a trail of litter -- includ...

National group to oversee efforts to deal with ghost estates... A NATIONAL co-ordination group is to be established within weeks to oversee action by local authorities in dealing with the most problematic ghost housing estates, according to Minister of State for Housing and Planning Willie Penrose. Addressing the Irish Planning Institute’s annual conference in Galway yesterday, he said one of his top priorities was that “clear, decisive and proactive actions are taken to progressively resolve the issues with unfinished housing developments”. It has emerged that the National Asset Management Agency (Nama) has 10 per cent of about 150 of the worst ghost estates that are unfinished and pose health and safety issues. The vast majority of the ghost estates that require the most work were financed by the foreign-owned banks operating in Ireland. About 28 per cent of the loans at Nama relate to land and development and about 16 per cent are in the Dublin area, where there is a great...

Irish property could still be overvalued by 30 percent... Irish house prices increased by around 330 per cent between 1996 to 2007 – a bubble of impressive scale and duration, but a bubble nonetheless. Plenty of outside observers saw the writing on the wall and said so, but they were overlooked in the Celtic Tiger gold rush. The European Central Bank (ECB), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the Financial Times, the Economist and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) all spoke of dire portents early and often. They were ignored. Cheap and easy money arrived in Ireland just as the tiger economy geared up. The country adopted the euro and access to a large pool of low-cost European finance with it. When the bubble burst Ireland's main domestic financial institutions were wiped out and European institutions and the IMF took over the nation's financial affairs. So the question now is has the country reached the end? According to a report i...

Soap opera life of Celtic Tiger dynasty... THE wealth built up by their parents was a launch pad for sons Jim Jnr and PJ in a boom-time era world of beautiful women, powerful cars and fashionable parties. In true soap opera style the family has seen more than its share of strife and tragedy. All three of Jim Mansfield's sons were brought into the family businesses, but personal rather than business dealings catapulted two of the boys into the media limelight. Youngest son PJ married model and former Miss Ireland Andrea Roche in a high-profile wedding ceremony in 2006. The event was a magnet for Ireland's fashionistas. Leggy models and household names were packed into a marquee in the grounds of nearby Palmerstown House for the reception. Nearby, the village of Saggart was choked to capacity by the fleet of Mercedes, Bentleys and Chryslers -- as well as the Mansfield's family Rolls-Royce -- which had been left parked on the narrow streets during the big event. ...

ECB-IMF deal is a noose that will strangle economic recovery... OPINION: What the ECB and IMF have forced on Ireland is fundamentally corrupt and doomed to failure. WHAT HAPPENED to the Celtic Tiger? For many years, Ireland’s growth was based on fundamentals: investing in education and infrastructure to make the country an attractive place for investment and a gateway to Europe for companies from the US and Asia. But then, like so much of the rest of the world, Ireland was distracted by the lure of fast bucks and the wizardry of finance. As in much of the rest of the world, false economic doctrines advocating unfettered markets prevailed, claiming the seeming success of the economy as evidence of their verity. Not surprisingly, economic doctrines that helped create the crisis have not served the country well in dealing with its aftermath. With those still in office entering into international lending agreements that benefit the Irish banks and their debt holders but not necessa...

'Bang twins' may never get to run a business again... POST-boom Ireland is awash with cautionary tales of Celtic Tiger excesses, as a rattle around the carcasses of fallen property developers and entrepreneurs will show. Few can compete with the so-called Bang twins for youth, glamour and tasteful extravagance. Simon and Christian Stokes, the 35-year-old identical twins behind Bang Cafe and exclusive private members club, Residence, saw their entire business go bust with debts of €9m, €3m of which is owed to the tax man. The debt may be in the ha'penny place compared with the eye-watering billions owed by some of their former customers. But their fall has been arguably steeper and more damning than some of the country's richest tycoons. Last week, further humiliation was heaped on them with revelations that even as their businesses were going under, the twins spent €146,000 of company money in 18 months on designer shopping sprees, five star holidays and sumptu...

Census to answer questions about state of nation... ARE WE losing our religion and getting divorced more often than before as the recession tightens its grip? How many of us are moving abroad to find work and escape the economic crisis? These questions and many more will be answered by Census 2011, which takes place on Sunday, April 10th, and will provide researchers with a treasure trove of statistical data to pore over to determine the state of the nation. Some 5,000 staff working for the Central Statistics Office (CSO), who are called enumerators, will begin distributing green Census 2011 forms to all 1.8 million households across the State from today. Everyone who is in the State on Sunday, April 10th, must fill in one of the 24-page forms, which include a range of personal questions designed to create a comprehensive picture of the social and living conditions across the State. The green forms ask for basic information about the occupants of a household such as their age...

Hundreds of repossessed homes in Ireland to be sold by auction... UK property consultancy Allsop to hold auction in April at Dublin's Shelbourne hotel: Flats in Ireland that could have fetched €150,000 in the Celtic Tiger years are to be put on the market for as little as €25,000 (£21,000) in the country's first ever mass auction of repossessed homes. And, in a sign of how wide the property crash is, the latest item to turn up in liquidation sales in Dublin is a job lot of 15 cranes, including a pair towering over Anglo Irish Bank's half-built headquarters in the city's docklands. "Tower cranes were among the most sought-after heavy plant and machinery 10 years ago," Ricky Wilson of Wilsons Auctions says. "You couldn't buy them quick enough. Now they are left idle for two or three years on sites." He has 15 cranes worth €500,000 going on sale on 26 March, with German, Dutch and Polish buyers expressing interest. But it is the auction ...

Once among the richest people in Europe, the Irish have been laid low by a banking collapse and the euro zone’s debt crisis. What now? “THERE’S a craze for land everywhere!” The line draws wry laughs from audiences in Dublin’s Olympia Theatre at a revival of “The Field”, John B. Keane’s play about a land dispute in south-west Ireland. Their country has been transformed since the play was first staged 45 years ago. But Mr Keane’s lines also belong to a more recent time in Irish history. Consider St Michael’s Green, an abandoned half-built housing estate near the village of Lixnaw, in north Kerry. “Look at what’s coming soon to Lixnaw”, proclaims a sign at the entrance. Visitors who take up the offer are met with an apocalyptic sight. Four finished houses, complete with driveways, stand in line. Windows are broken; shards of glass are strewn on the ground. Peer (carefully) through the window-frames and you can see doors hanging from hinges and semi-carpeted floors. Opposite the house...