Daft Property - Irish Property News

Property crash wipes €257bn off value of homes in six years... IRELAND'S homeowners have collectively lost an estimated €257bn in property value in the six years since the market began to crumble, the Irish Independent can reveal. The 50pc collapse in value since the peak of 2007 also means that by the Central Bank's own estimates, Ireland's crash has now become the worst experienced by any country in the world. The combined loss to the owners of Irish residential properties since the bubble burst equates to almost four times Ireland's total bailout sum of €67.5bn and more than half the total amount of money first set aside in the European Union's €500bn Financial Stability Facility. The PTSB/ESRI Index, Ireland's former national price barometer, showed average house prices standing at €310,632 at the start of 2007. An estimated drop of 50pc in value puts the average loss to an Irish household at €155,316. With 1.6 million households across the co...

Homeowners' guide to calculating and paying the new tax... From next week 1.9 million homeowners will start getting letters from the Revenue outlining how they are to pay a new local property tax which is to replace the household charge that was introduced two budgets ago. Property tax? But I paid a fortune in stamp duty when I bought my house at the height of the boom. Surely I can’t owe more money on a property that is now worth half of what I paid for it? Yes you can. The Government, has decided to ignore the massive amounts of money it collected from us in property-related stamp duty over the last decade or so and start on a blank page when it comes to property tax. The good news (for the Government) is that it should raise €500 million a year from the new tax. How much will this one cost me?  Well it depends on where you live, but the good news is that the majority of people will be expected to pay less than €500 a year thanks to the all but total collapse of th...

Homeowners warned against 'fixing' values... HOUSEHOLDERS are already planning to deliberately undervalue their houses to cut down on their property tax bills, a government TD has claimed. There are fines of up to €3,000 in property tax legislation for those who knowingly make a false declaration. But FG Dublin North TD Alan Farrell said he had learnt that some householders in his constituency were discussing a 'price-fixing' system – so that all the people in their street or estate would provide the same deliberately low value to the Revenue. "I think there would be nothing worse in the present economic environment if we had a two-tier system where some people were fiddling the system, while others are doing the right thing," he said. The property tax will be charged at 0.18pc of the current market value of a house, with householders paying six months of the tax this year from July 1. Mr Farrell, who worked as an auctioneer before he was elected ...

Morgan Kelly predicts further unforseen losses for banks... Kelly warns billions owed by small number of big developers UCD economist Morgan Kelly has predicted that bad debts of a small number of wealthy buy-to-let property investors could lead to previously unforeseen losses for the banks. Professor Kelly claims this group could cause major problems, even if the overall number of people not repaying home loans does not rise drastically. However, Prof Kelly, who is renowned for his doom-laden analysis of the housing market, admitted he had no idea how big the resulting losses could be if these 'super-investors' cannot repay their loans. Prof Kelly, who forecast the original property bust, says in a new academic paper that many wealthy buy-to-let property investors have multiple loans and if they get into trouble that losses will be magnified. In the paper, published on the UCD website, the economist said there could be as few as 2,000 mortgages of more than €1m tak...

More pain as households hit with new €100 ‘property’ tax... ALMOST all households are set to be hit with a new €100 service charge to be announced this week, the Irish Independent has learned. The Cabinet will sign off on the combined water and property tax tomorrow, despite the easing of the debt burden under the new EU bailout deal. Environment Minister Phil Hogan is coming under pressure to exempt those on low incomes from the new tax, which will result in middle-income earners paying more. The Government is expecting to bring in upwards of €150m from the charge. The flat-rate levy, to be introduced next year, will be the first tough decision to be taken by the Coalition that will prove unpopular to the overwhelming majority of people. The options for the annual charge range from €100 to €200 a year. The likely outcome is a sum at the lower range of €100, with a small number of exemptions -- the solution favoured by Mr Hogan. However, this will have to be approved by the...

In today's Sunday Buisness Post, Post David Cullen in Belfast reports, on the Property scene in Northern Ireland... "North facing property crisis as house values take a hammering... The deepening crisis in the North’s residential property market is highlighted by figures showing a near 19 per cent slump in values in the year to the end of June. The survey, by Nationwide building society, also showed that prices had dropped by 9 per cent in the second quarter of this year - the steepest correction in property values recorded across Britain and the North. The downturn comes on the back of an unusually sharp jump during 2006 and 2007, when prices grew by almost 80 per cent. ‘‘These increases were clearly not sustainable and left the market particularly vulnerable to external shocks, such as the financial downturn that began last August,” said Fionnuala Earley, chief economist of Nationwide. ‘‘We are now seeing the consequences of that excess vulnerability.” The average price of a...