Daft Property - Irish Property News

THE taxman will use GPS-style technology to help work out your property tax bill. Sophisticated aerial mapping will be used to measure a home's proximity to shops, transport links, schools and other amenities that have a bearing on a property's value. A 'deprivation index' will also be used to measure the affluence or poverty of an area, which will also have a bearing on the value and the amount of tax that should be paid. Homeowners will receive letters in the coming weeks telling them how much the Revenue thinks their home is worth and the tax band the property falls into. The revelations show the hi-tech lengths the Revenue is going to in order to clamp down on those who knowingly undervalue their home for the new charge. It is employing a sophisticated database which calculates a property's location in relation to facilities that increase its value. Aerial maps and GPS-style systems will measure "the distance from each property to a series of...

House prices take another dive bringing annual collapse to 14pc... House prices took another nosedive towards the end of the summer, official figures have revealed. The cost of residential property fell 1.6pc in August taking the total collapse over the previous 12 months to 13.9pc. The Central Statistics Office (CSO) said homes have fallen in value by 43pc since the peak of the market in early 2007. Over the last four years house prices in Dublin are down 48pc and apartments 57pc, while the fall in residential property prices outside the capital is about 40pc since the bubble burst. According to Conall Mac Coille, chief economist at Davy Stockbrokers, the prices are based on very low level transactions because mortgage lending remains weak. “So falling prices reflect distressed vendors being forced to sell despite weak market conditions,” he said. “Hence residential property prices are likely to continue falling through 2011.” Report by Ed Carty - Irish Independent

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...

Average house prices are now back at January 2004 levels - report... AVERAGE HOUSE prices in Ireland are now back at the level seen in January 2004, according to the latest ESRI/Permanent TSB house price index. Prices fell by 1.5 per cent in August, according to the data released yesterday, bringing the decline in the past year to 13 per cent. According to the survey, house prices have now been falling for two full years and are 24.4 per cent lower than at their peak in February 2007. Niall O’Grady, general manager of business strategy at Permanent TSB, said the rate of decline had been more dramatic during the summer due to the low levels of activity in the market and a lack of confidence in any recovery this year. “Recently, prices have started to fall faster in the Dublin region due to the high level of surplus stock available,” he said. House prices in Dublin have fallen by 18 per cent over the past year, compared with a 12 per cent decline for property outside the capital, the sur...

Emigration hits new high as foreign workers leave... FOREIGN workers have been losing their jobs in droves and leaving the country -- resulting in the first net emigration since 1996. Figures from the Central Statistics Office show that a quarter of all the jobs held by foreign workers disappeared in the 12 months to last April. Most of these belonged to workers from eastern Europe. This job loss compared with a drop of 8pc in employment overall. This reduction, and a doubling of unemployment to more than 11pc, is the steepest decline in the labour market ever recorded. It was driven by a loss of more than one in three of all building jobs -- where employment collapsed by 86,000 -- a 13pc fall in retail and wholesale, and a 9pc drop in industrial employment. Analysts say the worst of the jobless rises may be over, with increasing emigration keeping down the total. They expect unemployment to peak at around 14pc next year -- better than earlier estimates of 17pc. "These figures to ...

If the Green Party has its way, there will be no immediate recovery in property values... THE LAST few months have been spent analysing the wreck that is the Irish property market. Though most attention in recent weeks has centred on Liam Carroll’s attempts to save the Zoe group of companies, punters have been equally interested in the huge price reductions for new apartments and second-hand homes. Luckily for first-time buyers, there are mortgages available for many of those who can comply with the strict new ground rules on job security, earnings and savings. For others anxious to trade up now that prices are on the floor, there can be little prospect of securing bank loans unless the Nama strategy works and the banks are recapitalised to resume lending, first of all to businesses and, after that, to house purchasers. Mind you, the events of last week did little to inspire much confidence in the property industry. Firstly, there was the proposal to introduce a punitive property tax o...

What happens if you voluntarily surrender your home? If the sale doesn't cover the mortgage you could be in trouble... One of the unspoken legacies of this recession will be the hundreds of people left paying full-term mortgages on properties they no longer own having been forced to sell at massive losses by the threat of repossession. With the 12-month moratorium on repossessions agreed as part of the government's recapitalisation programme for the Bank of Ireland and AIB and political pressure generally, the prime lenders are reluctant to be seen opting to force people out of their homes. However, it's understood that many are opting to give customers in serious financial difficulty six months to sell their property despite the fact that they are almost certainly going to do so at a significant loss. That this option avoids the repossession process is almost irrelevant to the mortgage holder because the end result is the same – the customer is left with a potentially huge...

Rise and fall of the Tiger nouveau riche... NOW THAT we’re in an economic war zone, I’ve been thinking about the Economic War. As my family was a direct victim of that conflict, I was reared with a rather one-sided view of the times that went beyond the abstract account in history books... My great-grandfather retired from a successful medical career and bought land in Meath which he farmed profitably. He must have done well because my grandfather was educated privately in England and in a literal manifestation of his position in society there was even a family pew in the upstairs gallery of the rural parish church. All went well until Éamon de Valera, the most pernicious and malign figure in Irish history, in a fit of ideological insanity implemented a set of policies that cut off our country’s only export market – England – for our only product – food – and thus crippled Ireland’s economy and in the process permanently ruined that class of people to which the now poor Dr Carey belong...

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 ...

Family fortunes fall €43,000 in two years... THE average family has lost €43,000 in the value of its pensions, shares, bank deposits and other assets in just two years, shocking new official figures reveal. At the height of the boom, in 2006, the average household had financial assets worth €95,200, but this has now nearly halved to just €51,500 today. The huge fall is highlighted in figures from the Central Statistics Office (CSO). It comes as workers have been hit hard by the introduction of savage income levies and pay cuts. The scale of the destruction of household assets is unprecedented in the history of the State. The losses arise from a sharp fall in the value of pensions, insurance policies, shares and bank deposits, according to the CSO. Stock market collapses over the past year have meant that almost all those with private pensions are now nursing huge losses. The only good news has come from a fall in prices – particularly mortgage costs. Collectively, the 1.5 million hous...

Property crisis has moved from slump to crash... ...price guide reveals desperate state of the housing market and its negative effect on the value of homes all across Ireland: First, we need to get our terminology right. To date, Ireland’s property crisis has been described as a slowdown, a downturn and a slump. But today the Sunday Times Property Price Guide 2009 shows that we’re in the grip of nothing less than a full-blown crash — and, by world standards, a severe one at that. In recent months, property agents have claimed that successive price surveys have not come close to reflecting the grim reality they have been experiencing on the ground. Now, with the help of our guide, you can realistically assess for the first time how the crash has affected the value of your home. This survey is more accurate than any other; to put it simply, no rival survey is as specific as the Sunday Times Property Price Guide. Here we examine the performance of more than 20 types of property in more th...

A 50pc descent from peak to trough... IF there is one economic certainty for 2009 it is that Irish house prices will continue to fall just as the economy accelerates in reverse. Even the most bullish of commentators or indeed vested interests have pencilled in 2010 as the earliest date for a turnaround. According to the ESRI, which is now firmly in the bear's camp, prices are likely to end 2009 at the same level as the last half of 2003. This means anyone who bought from 2004 on is very likely to have a home worth less than they paid for it. With the economy set to decline by 5 per cent or more and employment to fall by as many as 140,000 jobs resulting in double digit unemployment figures, people will simply hold off on most purchases. According to Jim Power, chief economist at Friends First this deterioration in the labour market with massive job losses and increased job uncertainty as well as downward pressure on wages will keep sentiment pretty negative. The result, he says, wi...

Falling prices represent new reality... At the end of last year, estate agents and vendors alike were reeling from the price drops that the market had experienced during 2007. But although they were shell-shocked, many industry experts were predicting that the rate at which prices were dropping would slow during 2008, and that prices would stabilise. Twelvemonths on, that now seems like nothing more than wishful thinking. The banking crisis, soaring unemployment and extremely poor consumer confidence have all resulted in the market having one of its worst years in living memory, a fact underlined last week by a survey which found that 80 per cent of estate agents were selling less than three properties a month. Even those potential buyers who are interested in buying are finding funding increasingly difficult to source, although observers are hopeful that the European Central Bank’s (ECB) policy of aggressive rate cuts will go some way towards alleviating that problem. With asking pric...

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 ...

Property spend plunges €40bn... Irish spend on property has crashed by 60pc in 2008 compared to last year, with expenditure down by a crushing 73pc -- or around €40bn -- since the market peaked in 2006. Our property spend is forecast to fall to €15bn this year -- down from €45bn in 2007 and a heady €54.4bn in 2006, according to the latest 'Property Outlook' from Savills. Joan Henry, head of Research at Savills Ireland says that all sectors of the property market have been affected -- most obviously the new homes area. The total spend on new homes is expected to fall from an estimated €23bn in 2007 to just €6bn this year. Spend in the Irish investment market is expected to be down as much as 75pc from last year's €2bn. Spend on domestic land is expected to fall by a staggering 80pc. In the new homes as in the second hand market, prices have fallen by as much as 30pc this year and maybe more if looked at on an individual basis. "Successive price reductions this year, cou...

Dublin's early Xmas lights failing to dispel high street gloom... Christmas is coming early to Dublin this year as city officials try to dispel the gloom from the country's first recession in two decades. Mayor Eibhlin Byrne will switch on the Irish capital's festive lights display on Nov. 9, before cities such as London, New York and Edinburgh, after bringing the ceremony forward by three weeks from last year. ''For retailers, it's not an easy time,'' said Byrne. ''We are harking back to John F. Kennedy and we are asking not what your city can do for you but what you can do for your city.'' Irish shoppers powered the fastest-growing economy in Western Europe over the last five years. Now, consumers are cutting spending as unemployment rises and property prices slump. Gerry Harvey, chairman of Sydney-based electronics and furniture retailer Harvey Norman Holdings Ltd., which has four Dublin stores, described Ireland's economy as '...

'Affordable housing' now more expensive than market... WITH THE downturn in property prices, homes in north and south Dublin and Meath are on the market for the same or lower prices than similar homes under the affordable housing scheme. Buyers can save €10,000 on €245,000 two-bedroom apartments in Phibblestown Wood, Ongar, Dublin 15, and €5,000 on €205,000 three-bedroom homes at Parnell Drive and Parnell Green, Ladyswell, Mulhuddart, by purchasing on the open market instead of through Fingal County Council. Three-bedroom apartments at Bailis Village, Navan, Co Meath, available through the county council's affordable housing scheme for €233,000, are advertised at the same price on the open market, as are two-bedroom properties at Eaton Square, Rathcoole, in south Dublin, available through the county council for €220,000. By purchasing on the open market homeowners avoid the "clawback" aspect of affordable housing schemes. Clawback means that if a home is sold with...

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 ...