Daft Property - Irish Property News

The fall in house prices left many homeowners in negative equity, but this need not necessarily prevent you from trading up... IT'S the topic no one wants to talk about, but this elephant has no plans to leave the room. Negative equity happens when the value of your property on the open market amounts to less than the sum of your mortgage. If you bought a house within the past five years, you are likely to be in negative equity to some degree. The average household is sitting on negative equity estimated at €43,000, according to Irish Independent calculations based on a recent report by Goodbody Stockbrokers. It was estimated that 116,000 households were in negative equity at the end of 2009, rising to nearly 200,000 by the end of this year, according to the Economic and Social Research Institute. However, this is a conservative estimate based on prices falling by 24pc from their peak in 2007. If house prices end up falling by 50pc, this figure would rise to 350,000. It is general