Daft Property - Irish Property News

Bulldozers send boomtime buildings crashing down... TWO unfinished houses that would have fetched €200,000 each during the boom have been bulldozed because of public safety fears. The unoccupied houses -- and foundations for three more -- were levelled at Church View in Clongeen, Co Wexford, at a cost to the taxpayer of €28,000. Other residents of the estate last night said they were relieved that Wexford County Council had taken action against the developers, Impulse Construction Ltd, by knocking down the houses. They said the unfinished houses had attracted vandals and encouraged anti-social behaviour for some time, and were unsightly at the entrance to the estate. This was the first time houses had been demolished in a new estate in Wexford, but the Department of the Environment confirmed other houses had been demolished on a small number of occasions. Wexford County Council confirmed it has more plans in the pipeline to carry out "public safety works which may involv...

FIRST, some good news. The fall in house prices might be accelerating, but vacancy rates in Dublin are falling. Estate agents Savills have published figures claiming that the number of unoccupied houses in the capital had fallen from 11,000 in March 2010 to just 5,400. According to Savills, people who are unable to sell their houses are successfully renting them instead. The Savills' figures support the findings of last April's census which showed that the proportion of vacant houses in Dublin and the surrounding counties, at 10pc or less, is much lower than elsewhere in the country -- for example over 30pc in Co Leitrim. Despite this chink of positive news, it's back to business as usual for our stricken property market. The latest house-price figures from the CSO weren't bad, they were catastrophic. After a few months during which it seemed as if the worst might be over, house prices plunged by 1.6pc in August and by 13.9pc over the past 12 month. The situ...

Revenue targets landlords in rental income crackdown... TAX officials are making door-to-door checks in estates across the country to see if landlords are paying all their taxes. Revenue officials are focusing on estates where there is known to be a high level of rented properties in the new clampdown on landlords. They are probing landlords who have buy-to-lets to see if they are making the correct tax claims on their rental returns and to see if they are registered with the State as landlords. It is part of an overall investigation by Revenue Commissioner officials into the black economy, the Irish Independent understands. There are fears that many buy-to-let landlords do not register with the Private Residential Tenancies Board (PRTB), accept cash in rent and do not make tax returns. It recently emerged that the State paid more than €250m last year to thousands of unregistered landlords. Half of the landlords who get rent supplement payments -- which can be as high as ...

How do you solve a problem like Clongriffin? The bubble burst leaving the new north Dublin suburb in the lurch. Now designers and architects are figuring out what can be done to create a sense of community... SO WHAT do you do with a place that’s merely a fragment of what was planned? Clongriffin, on the north fringe of Dublin, was supposed to have a population of 30,000 to 40,000, with all the communal facilities they would need. But construction ground to a halt when the bubble burst, leaving the area’s residents high and dry. Enter Designing Dublin, a unique initiative by Design 21st Century, founded by Jean Byrne and Jim Dunne, who are both members of the Crafts Council of Ireland with backgrounds in business. Dunne was inspired by an exhibition at the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art about how design could address current challenges. They brought in Vannesa Ahuactzin, a young American architect who did a year’s programme at the Institute Without Boundaries in Toronto, which spe...

Thousands facing a future living in unfinished estates... TENS of thousands of homeowners face the prospect of living in unfinished estates for the foreseeable future. Construction bosses admitted yesterday that incomplete developments may never be finished. Cash-strapped builders can't get loans to tidy off their estates and now heavily mortgaged families will be forced to remain there without proper roads, footpaths, green spaces and public lights. Former president of An Taisce Eanna Ni Lamhna, who is still an active member, told the Irish Independent that the state's heritage body had long warned of the effect of half-built houses on the landscape. "It doesn't give me any pleasure to say that if they'd listened to An Taisce, we wouldn't be in the situation we're in now with all these houses," she said. "I must say that we've been saying for years that it was too much too soon. I was told that I was against development and we were against ev...