Daft Property - Irish Property News

House prices ‘could fall by 67% from peak’... INTERNATIONAL credit ratings agency, Fitch Ratings has warned of "further downside risks" to Irish house prices; adding that prices could ultimately fall by 67% from peak levels in a worst-case scenario. In a new report on the Irish housing market, Fitch said it realistically expects prices to show a total drop of 50% from their peak around four years ago. However, it added that while that rate of decline forms "the most likely scenario", a worst-case scenario would result in a full-term 67% drop in house prices. "Irish house prices continued declining during 2010 and now are approximately 42% below the peak. "In light of the oversupply of properties and continued restricted credit availability, the agency sees further downside risks to Irish house prices and as a result, Fitch now expects a peak-to-trough house price decline of approximately 50% as the most likely scenario," said Ketan Thaker, sen...

"If you thought the bank bailout was bad, wait until the mortgage defaults hit home." THE BIG PICTURE: Ireland is effectively insolvent – the next crisis will be mass home mortgage default, writes MORGAN KELLY ... SAD NEWS just in from Our Lady of the Eurozone Hospital: After a sudden worsening in her condition, the Irish Patient, formerly known as the Irish Republic, has been moved into intensive care and put on artificial ventilation. While a hospital spokesman, Jean-Claude Trichet, tried to sound upbeat, there is no prospect that the Patient will recover. It will be remembered that, after a lengthy period of poverty following her acrimonious divorce from her English partner, in the 1990s Ireland succeeded in turning her life around, educating herself, and holding down a steady job. Although her increasingly riotous lifestyle over the last decade had raised some concerns, the Irish Patient’s fate was sealed by a botched emergency intervention on September 29th, 2008 followe...

The banks' forbearance to customers in arrears may be storing up future trouble as household debt spirals... The banking system is desperately trying to hold back an ever-rising tide of overdue mortgages as high unemployment and increasing mortgage rates play havoc with family finances. Lenders have been ordered by the Financial Regulator to help people stay in their homes, even when they've stopped paying their loans, but how much forbearance can our weak financial system take before buckling? More than one in 10 borrowers is now in distress, according to the latest quarterly figures on residential mortgage arrears from the Financial Regulator and unofficial estimates by the Irish Banking Federation (IBF). Around 36,000 households are now more than 90 days in arrears, with two-thirds of that total more than six months behind on their mortgages, according to the regulator. The IBF is preparing new data on restructured mortgages – loans switched to easier repayment arrangements ...

When property prices in a leafy corner of Dublin 4 hit world-record heights, the signs were all there for catastrophe... Four years ago, property editors of leading international newspapers just could not believe what they were hearing. Homes on Shrewsbury and Ailesbury roads in the Dublin suburb of Ballsbridge, which had long set the record as Ireland's most expensive, were reaching new peaks, rivalling some of the most expensive properties in Manhattan or Paris. Prices of a country's most expensive residential properties are a useful early indicator for economies facing economic trouble. Prices of top-end Irish properties at their peak were signalling that the Irish economy was heading for a crash, because residences on Ailesbury and Shrewsbury roads were not only the priciest in Ireland, but were also arguably the most expensive in the world. In 2006, high-end properties, selling for an equivalent €4,450 per square foot, in a London economy fuelled by bankers' multi-mill...

Could this be a lifeline for those in negative equity?... Those with underwater mortgages may hope that new, negative equity mortgages could offer them a way out... Are negative equity mortgages a way out for people trapped in properties that no longer suit their needs or just another minefield waiting to blow up? COULD A SOLUTION to the negative equity nightmare currently facing hundreds of thousands of people finally be in sight? No, it’s not a rebounding property market, but rather a number of proposals aimed at lightening the load of those who bought during the boom, are now struggling to meet their monthly repayments and are stuck with properties they cannot sell. For those with underwater mortgages, the difficulty in selling arises because the sale of the property will not generate enough to pay back the lender. For example, if you bought a property for €400,000 with a 95 per cent mortgage during the boom, regardless of the fact that the apartment will now only make €280,000 on t...

25,000 families now face losing their homes FEAR: No more breathing space on mortgages... UP TO 25,000 home owners face the chilling prospect of having their homes repossessed because they have fallen significantly behind on mortgage repayments. Irish Life & Permanent (IL&P), which has a 25pc share of the home mortgage market, has confirmed that 6,122 loans are now three months or more in arrears and it is estimated that up to another 20,000 mortgage holders with other lending institutions are in a similar position. Under the State bailout arrangement, banks had agreed to give all mortgage customers one year's breathing space before repossessing. But, for many, that deadline is now imminent. New legal orders coming in to effect on October 1 will make it easier for District Courts to grant uncontested repossessions, which is likely to increase the number of homes being taken over by banks. Under the same act, contested repossession cases will be heard in the Circuit Court ra...

Underwater mortgages: a guide to survival... Latest estimates suggest that as many as 340,000 home-owners, or one in five homes, are stuck in negative equity... HINDSIGHT IS a wonderful thing. Looking back at the prices people paid for Irish property during the boom, it’s easy to see how unsustainable they were. However at the time, despite warnings from everyone from the Central Bank to the Economist magazine that Ireland’s property market was a bubble which had to burst, banks and consumers ignored the advice and ploughed money into property, propping up prices until the inevitable collapse during 2008. Now, latest estimates suggest that as many as 340,000 home owners, or one in five homes, are stuck in negative equity and prices are still sliding . If this is the case, then people who purchased property as far back as 2003 with loan-to-values (LTVs) of more than 80 per cent, will discover that they owe more to the bank than what their house is worth. For example, at the peak of the ...

Record increase in families fighting to save home... REPOSSESSION orders sought by banks and mortgage lenders soared by more than 100pc last year in the wake of the downturn. According to figures complied by the Courts Service, 758 new applications for possession orders were brought to the High Court in 2008 -- compared to 374 the previous year. The increase is the largest ever recorded by the courts and points to aggressive tactics deployed by some lenders to recover their debts. Many of the applications were from subprime lenders, such as Start Mortgages, but there were also from major banks such as AIB and Bank of Ireland. In the past six months of 2008 the High Court received 505 applications -- compared with 253 at the start of the year. However it was the final quarter of last year, when the country was hit by massive job losses, which saw applications gain momentum. Between October and December 294 applications were brought by lenders -- compared to just 96 during the same perio...

Does the following sound fimilar?... " This is an extraordinary period...Over the past few weeks, many...have felt anxiety about their finances and their future. I understand their worry and their frustration . We've seen triple-digit swings in the stock market. Major financial institutions have teetered on the edge of collapse , and some have failed. As uncertainty has grown, many banks have restricted lending. Credit markets have frozen. And families and businesses have found it harder to borrow money. We're in the midst of a serious financial crisis ... First, how did our economy reach this point? For more than a decade, a massive amount of money flowed ...from investors abroad, because our country is an attractive and secure place to do business. This large influx of money to... banks and financial institutions -- along with low interest rates -- made it easier...to get credit. These developments allowed more families to borrow money for cars and homes... some for the ...