Daft Property - Irish Property News

Irish debt cut to 'junk' status as euro zone crisis deepens... Irish debt was cut to “junk” status by credit rating agency Moody’s, last night, hours after the Minister for Finance said that measures to aid Greece proposed by euro zone finance ministers on Monday night would benefit Ireland. Moody’s appeared to contradict the Minister last night saying the measures being contemplated for Greece had increased the chance that Ireland might default on some of its debts if it has to seek another bailout from Europe. The resulting downgrade is expected to lead to a sell-off in Irish bonds when markets open today as many lenders will only hold bonds considered to be investment grade by privately owned rating agencies such as Moody’s. Bloxham analysts said the downgrade would prompt some forced selling by investors who are not allowed to hold non-investment grade securities, and would be dropped from some of the bond indices. “In our view this latest move by Moody’s is cynic...

Finding new ways to solve the personal debt crisis Many homeowners have trouble making monthly repayments but there are ways to ease the burden... WITH about 86,000 homeowners now struggling to repay their mortgage, and four times more debtors seeking free legal advice than did in 2007, Ireland is in the midst of a personal debt crisis. We need solutions, and we need them quickly. What could they be? Write off mortgages A homeowner who is battling to repay a massive mortgage should be allowed to write off some of their loan, according to Michael Dowling, spokesman for the Independent Mortgage Advisers' Federation. This should make their mortgage more affordable and prevent them from either having to sell their home at a lower price than they paid for it -- or having it repossessed. "We need long-term solutions," said Dowling. "No one should be asked to leave their family home. But to make the debt-forgiveness solution palatable to other homeowners who are...

Ireland is now more than 10 billion euro in the red after the latest banking bailouts, latest Exchequer figures reveal. The Department of Finance said the debt crisis would have improved significantly - by almost 700 million euro - if it had not been for massive payments pumped into Anglo Irish Bank and Irish Nationwide in March. More than three billion euro injected into the doomed lenders from the public purse is largely to blame for a deficit jump from just under eight billion euro this time last year to 10.2 billion euro. While income tax has increased - mainly because of the universal social charge - overall taxes were lower than predicted by department officials, the latest figures show. This was mainly down to a shortfall on corporation taxes, which came in 140 million euro less than calculated. There were also lower than expected capital taxes, including stamp duty. The Department of Finance said the shock corporation tax figures could be partly blamed on "timi...

McNamara, FitzPatrick facing bankruptcy 'in weeks'... TWO of the Celtic Tiger's highest fliers -- developer Bernard McNamara and banker Sean FitzPatrick -- face bankruptcy within weeks. The Irish Independent has learned that Mr McNamara, once worth almost €240m, is facing a fresh attempt by a group of private investors to force him into bankruptcy. The group is pursuing up to 40 properties owned by the Clare-born builder, records show. Meanwhile, Anglo Irish Bank will veto any plans by FitzPatrick -- who owes the bank €110m -- to reach a private deal with his creditors. Both men are now facing the real prospect of having all their assets, including their family homes, seized and sold off. Pursued Bankruptcy in Ireland lasts for 12 years, with those declared bankrupt facing travel restrictions, curbs on their ability to borrow money and/or run a business. Mr McNamara is already being pursued by investors arising from the disastrous Glass Bottle site investment. But now a sec...

Tycoon's dolce vita ends as art seized... THE Dublin city sheriff has seized an art collection and other valuables from the Ailesbury Road home of fallen property developer Bernard McNamara. The collection will be sold to help pay his debts. The sheriff, Brendan Walsh, is believed to have moved against the property developer within the past fortnight, calling to his salubrious Dublin 4 home acting on a court order to seize anything of value from his home to reimburse his creditors. The sheriff is believed to have taken paintings from the family home along with a small number of other items. The development marks a new low for Mr McNamara, once one of Ireland's richest men but who now owes €1.5bn . The property developer and former county councillor from Clare turned the building firm founded by his father Michael into one of the biggest in Ireland. He is the highest-profile former tycoon to date to be targeted by bailiffs, signalling just how far some of Ireland's billionai...

Writing Ireland's wrongs... Like buzzards picking over a carcass, foreign media is delighting in writing in-depth analysis pieces on our economic tribulations...The way they see us: we were once the landlords of the world; now ghost estates is where we're at. Ireland may not be ablaze, but it is all the rage. Last Tuesday, the UK Guardian newspaper did a major feature on the once mighty, but now much lamented, Emerald Isle. The week before that both the Financial Times and the New York Times produced long articles on Ireland and the state it's in. The headlines said it all. "Ireland's miracle – or mirage?"; "Ireland's shattered dreams"; "How bankers brought Ireland to its knees". It immediately becomes obvious that these esteemed organs are not in pursuit of clues as to how the country produced Jedward or Crystal Swing. Ireland has now become something of a laboratory for chin-stroking international journalists. Profiling the place is a...

Burden of Irish debt could yet eclipse that of Greece... OPINION: What will sink us, unfortunately but inevitably, are the huge costs of the September 2008 bank bailout... IT IS no longer a question of whether Ireland will go bust, but when. Unlike Greece, our woes do not stem from government debt, but instead from the government’s open-ended guarantee to cover the losses of the banking system out of its citizens’ wallets. Even under the most optimistic assumptions about government spending cuts and bank losses, by 2012 Ireland will have a worse ratio of debt to national income than the one that is sinking Greece. On the face of it, Ireland’s debt position does not appear catastrophic. At the start of the year, Ireland’s government debt was two- thirds of GDP: only half the Greek level. (The State also has financial assets equal to a quarter of GDP, but so do most governments, so we will focus on the total debt.) Because of the economic collapse here, the Government is adding to this d...

29 property suicides leave State unmoved... Families torn apart by cash crisis Twenty-nine deaths by suicide can be directly linked to the turmoil in the construction and property sector but dozens more deaths among small investors, homeowners and construction industry workers linked to financial despair have gone unreported. David Mellon, of the Irish Property Council believes the human misery inflicted by the collapse in the property and construction industry is incalculable and the Government is doing nothing to protect the sanctity of the family home. He predicted that by the time the economy recovers, hundreds will have taken their own lives because they have been plunged into a financial abyss from which they can see no way out. "We are talking about people who invested in property, people who earned their livelihood from it in many forms; builders, plasterers, plumbers, developers and large and small investors. "They are now facing financial disaster, bankruptcy and de...

1,500 homeowners a month seek state aid on mortgages MORE than 1,500 applications for mortgage interest supplements are being lodged by struggling home owners every month, it has emerged. As a result, community welfare officers administering the scheme for borrowers are being overstretched as demand for the state-paid mortgage assistance rises. The number in receipt of Mortgage Interest Supplement has shot up by 260% since the height of the boom. At the end of November 2009, 17,500 Mortgage Interest Supplement claims had been lodged for the whole year. Up to 12,800 claims were granted during the same period. Recipient numbers have escalated since the boom, rising 260% since the end of 2007 when the total number of recipients was 4,111. A private report for a section of the Department of Social and Family Affairs, which oversees the scheme, reveals the concern by community welfare officers over the mortgage arrears crisis. The report, obtained by the Irish Examiner, puts the debt crisis...

IRELAND TODAY: IT’S JUST over a year since Wall Street and its Irish cheerleaders chanted “We are where we are” while Main Street reeled. Since then, every wrong-headed, populist Government economic policy, every catastrophic failure of the Financial Regulator, every rampantly greedy, short-termist instinct of the financial institutions and builders/developers has been exposed... A year ago, commentators were predicting something akin to the end of capitalism as we know it. Citizens were demanding humility, apologies, accountability, a purpose of amendment, radical reform, fewer tax breaks, an end to the bonus culture and a fairer share-out of the tax burden. So how is your head now, a year on? Still looking for other heads on plates? There is a lot to rage against. Only this week, headlines announced that banks are being “forced” to pay bonuses. But how long can a people sustain a condition of mass, impotent rage while remaining relatively sane and healthy? A few weeks ago, 1,200 peop...

State should start printing money to rescue economy... Did you know that our country's housing wealth has shrunk at a rate of €142.8m per day since the peak of the boom in 2007? This is a catastrophic figure because housing wealth was one of the key drivers of spending, and domestic spending is what kept the dole queues so low in the boom years. Without this housing "feel-good factor" we will continue to spend less. And the housing situation is getting more alarming. In January 2007, the total value of all our houses and apartments was €550.64bn and today that figure is €411.69bn. According to the latest report from daft.ie, rents are collapsing back to 1999 levels. Many people believed that, even in the worst case scenario, the housing market would bottom at 2003/4 levels. This now looks optimistic. The more rents fall, the more house prices fall too and this is because the rents are a leading indicator of what is happening to real housing demand. There is such an over...

For God's sake get a move on... THE message from the OECD is clear. Translated into the vernacular, it is: "For God's sake, get a move on, lads" The secretary general of the helpful international body warned that cuts in public spending should begin immediately. In other words, the idea that a restructuring, spread over three to five years, would solve the crisis in the public finances is misguided. Mr Angel Gurria was probably too diplomatic to say as much in public. Instead, he looked Brian Lenihan in the eye and told him: "The problem is that you may not have time, Mr Minister . . . The markets are zeroing in on countries." The "markets" are loaning this country €2bn a month so that the Government's pay cheques for public and civil servants will not bounce, and so that the 160,000 private sector workers who have been thrown out of work in the past year will at least have some euro to buy food for their families. Yesterday's lowering of I...

Negative equity hits €43,000 as average debt soars to €130,000... Report paints grim picture of economy... THE collapse in the housing market has left the average household sitting on €43,000 of negative equity. A borrowing frenzy during the boom means Irish households are now nursing debt levels which are the fifth highest in the developed world. The average household owes €230,000 on its mortgage alone, excluding credit card, personal loans and other debts. These figures have emerged from calculations based on a new report on the economy from Goodbody Stockbrokers. Goodbody's Dermot O'Leary estimates that the bursting of the housing bubble has sent house prices down by 40pc from their peak in February 2007. This means the average house in the State is now worth around €187,000. There are 640,000 households with a mortgage, and the average household is sitting on negative equity estimated at €43,000, calculations based on the Goodbody report by the Irish Independent show. The ...