Daft Property - Irish Property News

THE CHOICE of investment properties available to Irish and overseas buyers is steadily increasing with the launch today of a marketing campaign for an entire development of 62 apartments and penthouses next to the North Circular Road entrance to the Phoenix Park in Dublin 7. David Browne of agent HT Meagher O’Reilly is seeking €9 million for the high quality scheme which was completed 12 years ago by Tony Gannon’s Unicorn Homes. The investment will show a net yield of 7.78 per cent. The broad mix of apartments in Park Lodge are fully occupied and are producing a rent roll of €823,000 per annum. The location has proved extremely popular from the start – beside the Phoenix Park and five minutes walk from the Luas at Heuston Station which travels past the Four Courts to the city centre. The five-storey apartment block is also a few hundred yards from the newly-built Criminal Courts of Justice on Infirmary Road. Park Lodge was developed on the site of the old Park Lodge Hotel, onc

Reality of the market has yet to hit property brochures... It’s almost  the end of 2012  and let’s face it, the property market is all about reality these days…some would say grim reality so why haven’t some estate agents tempered the grandiose  language in their brochures to reflect the general mood, one wonders?  It’s supposed to be a new era of transparency following the introduction of the  Property Services Regulation Act 2011 so shouldn’t that involve a rethink on the adjective  count  in the average brochure? Take for example the use, or misuse,  of the word “residence”  which seems to apply to  the  pokiest townhouse and  modest three-bed semi. While referring to a small house as a residence  isn’t wrong exactly, it is a tad misleading, or it would be if you couldn’t see the photos. Maybe the hope is if they use the word often enough it will subliminally trick the buyer into thinking  they are buying Downton Abbey . There seems to be a brochure  template that some agen

Has the property market truly bottomed out? And not only that, but showing some signs of life? Well yes and no. Very encouraging signs are there for all to see. The newspaper property supplements are less anaemic and signs proclaiming "Sold" which have been as rare as hens' teeth are suddenly being seen in some of the better Dublin enclaves. Agricultural land is making record prices. And there are tentative signs that if potential buyers can survive a searching examination of their finances -- now so intimate that it would shame a proctologist -- there are mortgages being approved. Even property auctions, a leit-motif of the halcyon days of the boom, are making a re-appearance after a five-year absence. While there are huge tracts of the country where the residential property market is still on life support there are at least some signs elsewhere that suggest the patient is out of intensive care. Recovery has started in Dublin, not all of the capital, but in the areas

Allsop Space Auction Venue - 6th July 2012 The Shelbourne Hotel Dublin 2 Start Times Single Session Auctioneer’s Announcements 10.45 a.m. Lot 1 not before 11.00 a.m. Lot     Type     Location     Reserve Price will not exceed this figure 1    Investment Flat    Dublin 2    €135,000 2    Investment Flat    Galway City    €120,000 3    Investment Flat    Malahide    €75,000 4    Vacant Freehold House    Killiney    €95,000 5    Vacant Freehold House    Galway City    €50,000 6    Investment Freehold House    Newbridge    €30,000 7    Land/Site    Gort    €27,150 8    Investment Flat    Dublin 8    €75,000 9    Vacant Freehold House    Mountshannon    €40,000 10    Vacant Freehold Building    Moville    €45,000 11    Investment Freehold Building    Wicklow    €100,000 12    Land    Castlemaine    €50,000 13    Vacant Freehold House    Bunclody    €35,000 14    Vacant Flat    Bundoran    €17,500 15    Vacant Flat    Cratloe    €75,000 16    Vacant Freehold Building    W

The legacy of the boom and the subsequent property collapse have come home to roost in 2012. This is the year the Nama deferred payment scheme was launched, a ghost estate was sold at a distressed property auction, and the country’s most expensive property failed to sell despite a 74 per cent price drop. Here are 10 properties that sum up where we are now ... 1. Walford, Shrewsbury Road Now that the madness of the property boom is a distant memory, it has become apparent that not only was Walford on Shrewsbury Road in Dublin 4 never worth the €58 million paid for it in 2005, it has failed to find a buyer for it, even at the radically reduced price of €15 million. The Edwardian house on 1.8 acres went on the market in September 2011 but was recently withdrawn, presumably because it failed to meet the guide price. When it was sold in 2005, the cachet of the road and the development potential drove rich individuals into a frenzy, pushing the price substantially ove

LAST WEEKEND estate agents cheerfully reported that the “top end” of the residential market was showing signs of improvement, as, since the beginning of the year, they had sold 50 houses at €1 million plus and a certain percentage of those sales had even exceeded the €2 million mark. Given that, a mere five or six years ago, well-located but modest three-bed terraced houses were selling for that amount and considerably more, they hardly expected us to jump up and down with excitement at the news. And considering that a certain percentage of these properties would have been purchased within the last decade for approximately three times the figure they have recently achieved, their vendors are unlikely to be thrilled either, since despite selling their home many are probably still up to their necks in debt. But the estate agents did at least confirm that many of the trophy properties are being snapped up by ex-pats, who are now returning to the Irish property market a

NAMA's fire sales show cruel reality... WHEN NAMA put for sale signs on hundreds of the properties in its extensive portfolio last week, it gave a glimpse of the abyss into which the Irish property market has fallen. But it really was no more than that - a mere glimpse into the as yet uncharted depths of a catastrophe that has the potential to devour the country's economy and impose penury on the population. On Thursday, NAMA announced its first set of annual accounts, which showed the ' bad bank' made a loss of €1.18 billion - that's one thousand and eighteen million - last year. The good news though is that it's mostly a 'paper' loss - we might not really be down by that much, it just depends on how the property market fares over the next few years. Given that the value of property in Ireland declined by a massive 2.1 per cent in July alone, there's not much reason to be overly optimistic there though. At the same time as announcing its annua

New mass sale in autumn... More property auctions are on the cards as owners seek fast sales in an uncertain market. KNIGHT FRANK is the latest estate agency firm to enter the mass auction market with plans to to hold a sale of 30 to 40 homes on a single day in the autumn. The company, which specialises in prime Dublin and country property, is currently scouting for suitable homes to include in an auction scheduled for October. The two auctions held by the Allsop/Space partnership, in April and earlier this month, have shown that there is a market for distressed properties at knockdown prices. Allsop/Space plans to hold a third auction in September with over 100 properties, the vast majority of which are being sold by receivers and banks. Savills is also planning to hold a distressed property sale in the autumn and is believed to be in negotiations with banks to sell their distresed stock. However, Knight Frank sees an opportunity in selling homes for owners rather than for ban

What's a house worth now: does anyone know? With no national house price register available to help homeowners, working out how much your property is really worth can be tricky – if not impossible LIKE MANY neighbourhoods around the country, Charlesland in Greystones, Co Wicklow could be renamed Walter Mittyland, such is the huge disparity in the asking prices of houses in the area. When Keith Slowey and his wife, Genevieve, put their three- bed end-of-terrace on 89 Charlesland Grove on the market in October at an initial asking price of €310,000 (now reduced to €295,000), a three-bed mid-terrace house nearby was asking €345,000 while another three-bed, also mid terrace, in the area was €485,000. There are lots of properties in Charlesland on the market and according to Keith Slowey, “the price range is crazy”. Two-bed houses predominate in the estate and some are asking more than nearby three-beds. The houses are being sold by investors bailing out of the market and owne

Knock knock? Who's there . . . in the market . . . Ireland’s property market is stuck in a vacuum, with the only stimulus coming from the old reliable triggers: birth, marriage, death and, increasingly, debt ARE WE THERE YET? The trip to the bottom of the property market is taking an awful long time. It’s three years since the jitters took hold with talk of empty apartments and stalled sales, two years since the global economy took a nosedive courtesy of Lehman Bros. Savvier individuals would say that they saw the end coming far earlier, as far back as autumn 2006 when auction rooms suddenly emptied. and demand for investment properties waned. Either way it’s been a long grinding descent to the point we’re at now, with house prices halved and empty homes littered across the landscape. Some estate agents insist that the bottom is now and that people can “smell the value out there”. If only the banks would start lending again, they say. However, would-be buyers have plenty of reason

Mortgage lending at lowest level since records began... MORTGAGE lending plunged last year to the lowest level since records began in 2005, as borrowing by investors and those seeking to trade up plummeted. Just €8.08bn of mortgage loans were issued in 2009, a 65pc drop on the previous year, the Irish Banking Federation said yesterday. The number of loans made fell 58.5pc to 45,818. “The data illustrate how difficult 2009 was for the mortgage market,” Irish Banking Federation boss Pat Farrell said. “The general economic situation, consumer confidence, the unsold housing stock and house-price movements will be among the factors to influence market activity in 2010.” Despite the plunge, first-time buyers and people moving house still only accounted for two-thirds of mortgage lending in the final quarter of 2009. Investors and those seeking socalled top-ups or remortgages accounted for the remainder. The market remains so moribund that there are more people borrowing money to “top up” the

Just eight houses sold under the hammer in Dublin this year, as the number of houses offered at auction collapsed by 80 per cent. In total,19 properties were offered for sale in the capital’s auction room; in 2006, at the height of the boom, more than 1,000 properties were auctioned in the city. Estate agents Bennetts held most of this year’s auctions, putting five properties under the hammer. Lisney handled four auctions, as did Sherry FitzGerald, while Colliers Jackson-Stops auctioned three. Douglas Newman Good, Harper O’Grady and Property Team each held one auction. Simon Ensor, director of auctions at Sherry FitzGerald, described the number of auctions this year as unprecedented. ‘‘In the past, a quiet year for us would have been one where we [Sherry FitzGerald] held 25 auctions and where overall, there were around 100 across the entire market," he said. ‘‘I’ve been selling houses by auction since the mid-1980s, and I don’t ever remember a year where there were so few sales.&q

That 40% drop - it's already happened... Economists have predicted that house prices have to fall by at least 40 per cent from their peak of 2006 but house builders say that’s already a reality... NEW HOMES agents have supported a claim by the Irish Housebuilders’ Association (IHBA) that selling prices for newly built houses and apartments have either bottomed out or are close to that stage in the price cycle. Dominic Doheny, chairman of the IHBA, said earlier this week that prices across the country have dropped by an average of over 40 per cent and that the level of unsold stock was between 35,000 and 40,000. He said that there are 9,000 new homes overhanging the Dublin market – a figure well below other estimates which put unsold properties at 15,000. Ken MacDonald of Hooke MacDonald said yesterday that judging by the magnitude of the price cuts and the increased number of enquiries and viewings in recent months, there was room for a guarded optimism that the market had bottomed

Is property past its sell-buy date?... 10 questions currently facing wary buyers and shell-shocked vendors... Are the banks really granting mortgages? To whom, what percentage of the property price, and under what conditions? Yes, technically. Loans of up to 92%, valued under €300,000, are being granted mainly to first-time buyers from Bank of Ireland, ICS and AIB. Other lenders are giving up to 80% of the purchase price (see graph). But the qualifying conditions are becoming more stringent, and if the bank doesn't really want to grant you a loan, they'll find a reason. Anecdotal evidence suggests that, after initial approval, stringent creditworthiness checks are carried out. For example, if a would-be borrower is behind with credit card payments, the loan will be turned down. Job security is a huge factor and everyone is under scrutiny now, says Peter Bastable of Simply Mortgages. "Those occupations on the danger list are widening day by day. It's no longer just cons

Crazy to sell in a buyer's market? If you are considering selling property but are afraid it might be neither nor viable nor sensible at this time, you may be pleasantly surprised to discover that there is a market out there – you just have to know your audience and what appeals to them... If you have a property that you are keen to sell, you may be debating the wisdom of doing so at a time when prices are dipping and so many others are holding back, but though it may feel like a lonely and risky path to take now, you would not be the only person in the country doing it. "We're seeing a mix of people selling at the moment," says Gillian Flanagan of Felicity Fox Auctioneers in Dublin. "We have a lot of people trading up, particularly young families with children who have outgrown the space they're in, people who need to move because their employment has changed location and people from different countries who are moving home. At the same time, a lot of people

What Dublin buyers are really paying... What’s your house really worth? Secret house sale data for the first four months of the year shows that in some cases, houses in the Dublin area are selling for half what the owners wanted. And nearly 20 per cent of buyers are paying cash... DATA FROM the sale of almost 200 homes in the Dublin area seen by The Irish Times show that house prices in the capital have dropped by up to 52 per cent since 2007. The data relates to 192 sales conducted by one of the country’s leading estate agencies in the first four months of 2009. The properties represent a wide range of homes at virtually every level of the market and in most postal districts. The majority of the 192 homes sold had been on the market since 2008, with some properties on sale since 2007. Analysis of the sales show that homes at the lower end of the price scale have fared best, selling for between 5 and 20 per cent below asking prices. In a very small number of cases starter homes actual