Daft Property - Irish Property News

AFFORDABLE housing schemes will be scrapped under new plans to encourage people to rent, instead of purchase, their home. Housing Minister Willie Penrose will today announce a major shift in housing policy. The State will no longer help middle-income earners to buy a property by subsidising the cost. Affordable homes were offered to first-time buyers who could not afford to purchase on the open market because prices were too high. Affordable homes were different from social housing, where a local authority provided a house and the tenant paid rent. Under the affordable scheme, owners had to live in the property and could earn up to €60,000 a year. Subsidies of up to 40pc of the asking price were on offer, and in the region of 30,000 affordable homes were sold since the early 1990s. However, the new housing policy says that "over-stimulation" of the housing market was a key factor in the economic downturn, and that people chose to buy homes "on the basis of

NOTHING BETTER encapsulates Ireland’s property crash than bleak images of “ghost estates”, which is why they have featured alongside the concrete skeleton of Anglo Irish Bank’s putative future headquarters in Dublin’s docklands in so much of the international media coverage of our current travails. What we must not forget, however, is that thousands of people are still suffering from the inevitable consequences of the crash, none more so than the residents of half-built housing estates abandoned by their once gung-ho developers when the bubble finally burst. Yet the feedback from many local authorities to the Department of the Environment indicated that “getting positive engagement from developers, site owners and financial institutions responsible for the loans on such developments was proving very difficult”, according to Minister of State for Housing and Planning Willie Penrose. As the final report of an advisory group set up to deal with this widespread problem made clear, “the

'The estate is shabby now. I don't know how they'll sell anything' Unfinished roads, stalled sewerage systems and dangerous empty houses: welcome to a housing nightmare... CIARÁN DOYLE lives in a well-designed, highly insulated, nicely finished three-bed house which he describes as “perfect”, yet everyone in town refers to where he lives as “the building site”. Rinuccini, incongruously named after a 17th-century Italian cardinal, is just one of several unfinished estates which encircle Portlaoise town but, on first sight, it’s the worst. Four storeys of bare grey concrete criss-crossed with rusting scaffolding, intended to house up to 70 apartments, fronts straight onto the Dublin Road. “The apartments are a holy show. Because we’re on the Dublin Road, it’s one of the first things that hits you coming in and it looks shocking bad for the town. I’ll never understand why they didn’t start building at the road first and work in.” Ciarán has plenty of opportunity to ponder

Problems at 'ghost estates' identified... So-called “ghost” housing estates are posing serious health and environmental dangers through problems such as incomplete sewerage systems, water contamination, unfinished roads and open manholes, a study has found. The issues have been identified in a pilot study in Co Laois, ordered by the Department of the Environment, on the likely effects of the sudden end to the building boom, particularly in rural areas. The study, which assessed housing developments that were granted planning permission in the county in the last five years, found a quarter of them had health and safety problems. It also emerged that local authority requirements for builders’ bonds are in many cases seriously inadequate. The bonds are supposed to be taken out to ensure estates are completed. In some cases the requirements appear to have been ignored completely. Minister of State with responsibility for planning Ciarán Cuffe said it was expected that most of the u

House prices will keep falling this year despite growth... HOUSE prices will continue to fall this year despite a return to economic growth, the Government has warned. And a report from the Department of the Environment warns that almost 200,000 homeowners are facing negative equity by the end of the year -- where one-in-four mortgage holders will be forced to pay off loans that exceed the value of their homes. The Housing Market Overview 2009 also says price recovery will take longer outside major urban centres, and that the downturn may be "longer or more severe" than expected . This means that demolition could be the only option for the thousands of housing units due to come under the control of NAMA because they are unlikely to ever sell. Unsold Officials from the department have begun a count of the number of unsold housing units across the country, with some estimates saying up to 300,000 may be empty. "The International Monetary Fund has analysed house-price cycle

Property tax: how will it work... Homeowners will have to fork out hundreds every year if the Government presses ahead with plans to introduce a new property tax... THE prospect of a property tax is looming large as the Government attempts to plug holes in the Exchequer finances. An annual tax based on the value and size of the property is what is being considered, it is understood. Taoiseach Brian Cowen said in the Dail last week that no decision had been made on the tax measure, but he did not rule out introducing the new tax either. The tax would be self-assessed. This would likely mean homeowners having to get their home professionally valued so they could make an accurate assessment of its worth. For a lower-valued house, homeowners would pay around €250 a year, while those with a pricier house in a sought-after area would pay more than €3,000 a year. However, any move to introduce a property tax is set to be hugely unpopular and may even be resisted, if calls and texts from homeo

"For the love of God, and his blessed disciple St Patrick, displace me from this wretched isle"... Mbwana minister! All hail from the Emerald Isle, on this, its patron saint's feast day! It is my 10th year here! Any chance of granting me the posting that I sought after my very first week? To somewhere civilised, like North Korea, or Burma, or dear old Liberia? I liked Liberia. Yes, they sometimes kill children there, but that is in war: the highest men in the land raped children at a time of peace in this country, and got away with it. Big men, Mbwana. Important men, with purple hats, and their crimes were covered up by other men with purple hats. The health ministry here is pioneering new long thin hospital wards called "corridors". There is no money for the patients, because it is all being spent on the staff. Thousands of people are X-rayed here, and then no one bothers to read the X-rays, ho ho ho. In a county called Kerry, they are building a new hospital i

Over 600 ghost estates stand as haunting legacy of crash... THE startling scale of Ireland's property crash is laid bare today as academics reveal that more than 600 'ghost' estates are scattered around the country. For the first time, a comprehensive map charts the locations of the empty and abandoned developments that stand as haunting monuments to the Celtic Tiger splurge . The analysis suggests pockets of the north-west and midlands will be worst hit by a housing glut that will take years to sell off. Largely rural counties Leitrim, Longford, Roscommon and Sligo have the highest number of partially built and semi-vacant housing estates when measured against their populations. Their relative distance from major cities is expected to compound their oversupply problem for the foreseeable future. Although Cork has 96 so-called 'ghost' estates and Dublin 58 -- the highest figures by county -- it is believed that their urban populations can absorb the surplus much soo

State to rent Nama properties for social housing... The government plans to rent thousands of vacant houses and apartments from the National Asset Management Agency (Nama) and use them for social housing. Representatives of the new ‘bad bank’ have held meetings with officials in the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government to explore the possibility of renting out properties that would otherwise lie empty. Housing minister Michael Finneran said his officials were seeking to ensure a ‘‘social dividend’’ from Nama by renting residential units on long-term leases for social housing purposes. Finneran said an arrangement could help to deliver ‘‘a return in line with Nama’s mandate’’. The government is under pressure to demonstrate to the European Commission that Nama will be capable of generating significant ongoing cash flows over its lifetime, and that the new agency will not be excessively generous to participating banks. While a move to rent properties for social ho

Shocking new probe shows 302,000 homes are left empty... More than 300,000 houses are lying empty around the country -- three times the official estimate, says a team of academics. The scale of vacant housing -- equivalent to half of all homes in Dublin -- could be enough to meet demand for years to come. The figure was worked out by the National Institute of Regional and Spatial Analysis (Nirsa), based at NUI Maynooth, which advises the Government. It is up to three times the estimate from Housing Minister Michael Finneran, who last week told the Cabinet there were between 100,000 and 140,000 houses lying empty. The construction industry suggested it was 40,000. NIRSA director Prof Rob Kitchin said he decided to calculate accurately the extent of empty housing because official figures do not exist -- only estimates. Along with colleagues, he used the GeoDirectory (Ireland's national address database), the 2006 Census and Department of Environment figures based on ESB connection p