Daft Property - Irish Property News

The new property reality... Like many things these days, the chances of selling a property seems to boil down to one factor: putting a realistic price tag on it and then being willing to take less than that. For estate agents around the country the last six months have been their worst nightmare. The younger generation of property professionals has never encountered the frustrations of the kind of market in which they are now operating. In the last six months there has been a growing body of buyers who are ready with mortgage approval or cash in the bank. These potential buyers have been tentatively viewing properties, and some even made offers. Then the daily diet of bad news increased and they evaporated back to the arms of the rental market - or their parents spare rooms - to sit it out. So what properties have sold in the last six months, the toughest months in a generation? The answer seems to be those that are 30 to 40 per cent cheaper than houses were on the same streets and ro

The grand house of cards comes tumbling down... The engine of the economic boom came grinding to a halt this year, but optimists hope the housing collapse is near bottom... MAYBE, JUST maybe, people will look back on 2008 as the year in which they should have bought property. A few years from now, when the economic gloom has lifted, today's prices - down as much as 40 per cent from the peak of 2006 - might seem like so many missed opportunities for first-time buyers and trader-uppers. If that sounds like something that a property journalist would say, then consider Warren Buffet's oft-quoted advice to investors: "Be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful." Right now, people in the Irish property market are very fearful. A combination of tumbling prices, banks refusing to lend and fast-eroding job security has created an atmosphere in which people are afraid to commit to buying even a sofa, never mind a home. "It's carnage out th

Prices down by 40% since peak... 2008 Review: PROPERTY VALUES: Residential property prices have fallen further than people realise, says estate agency chief Keith Lowe - but he says next year could show a recovery THERE IS STILL much after-dinner discussion as to what is really happening in the residential property market, only now the subject matter has changed from how high prices are, to how far property prices have really fallen. At the moment, due to data protection legislation, the media, buyers and sellers alike are starved of accurate information on the actual sale prices that are being achieved for property, leaving consumers with a wholly unsatisfactory vacuum of information. As a result, most interested parties turn to the plethora of house price indices produced by a variety of organisations. One of the most respected indexes is the Permanent TSB/ESRI house price survey. Having the ESRI involved has given this survey independence whereas other surveys are deemed to have so

How Low Dare You Go? ...With few property deals being done and prices in freefall , many vendors are wondering what their bottom line should be to get a sale... House prices are sliding – and fast. Yet while most vendors now accept that they have to cut prices in order to tempt buyers, despite all the potential bargains on the market, statistics suggest that buyers are still deterred. Lack of liquidity, the prospect of further price falls, job losses and a worsening economic climate are taking its toll. In 2007, 158,000 people drew down mortgage loans. Frank Conway of the Irish Mortgage Corporation suggests this is down by as much as 36% this year – so far. According to Sherry FitzGerald's latest House Price Index prices have fallen by 26% since their peak in June 2006, with prices down by as much as 32.8% in Dublin. At the lower end of the market, vendors slashing €60,000, €70,000, €80,000 off the price of their property is common. High-end homes have been reduced by hundreds of t

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

Latest round of cuts as vendors move to sell... Prices are tumbling at all levels of the market as homeowners accept that this is what's needed to tempt buyers ...four with deep price cuts: BAGGOT STREET FROM €5M TO €3.8M NUMBER 72 LOWER Baggot Street was priced at €5 million when it first came to the market in August 2006. Since then this price has been revised down to €3.8 million by selling agent Lisney, a cut of €120,000 or 24 per cent. One of the last inhabited houses on Lower Baggot Street, the four-storey over garden level terraced house has been used as a home and dental practice for many years. The 392sq m (4,200sq ft) of living space includes a self-contained flat in the basement. It is also one of the few houses on that part of Baggot Street to still retain its full garden and mews - a two-storey mews house with three small bedrooms, and rear access onto a laneway. The house was put up for auction back in September 2006, but failed to sell. It has been on the market quie

'Hot' buyers wait in the wings for market to bottom out... ESTATE AGENTS who feel they may never complete another good sale should be cheered by some new research from Sherry Fitz-Gerald. A survey carried out by the company suggests there are over 650 buyers with an estimated €831 million to spend in the Dublin residential market - as soon as prices have stabilised. Group chief executive Mark Fitz-Gerald sees prices bottoming out in the next six months, with prices having already dropped by 35 per cent in some neighbourhoods. The survey carried out among the company's branches has identified 656 "hot buyers" in the Dublin area; people who have expressed a strong interest in buying in the coming months. An additional 74 buyers are poised to spend €26 million in Cork city, according to the agency's research. Sherry FitzGerald found that 65 buyers are waiting in the wings to buy property in Ballsbridge, with a collective budget of €129 million. In the area stretc