Daft Property - Irish Property News

We're being seduced by property porn again – will we ever learn? LAST week the "glossy brigade" was out in force. Papers were full of bright, impossibly blue skies, over "imposing" homes many of which "boasted" this feature or that attribute. Yes, the glossy brigade, Ireland's property pornographers, who pedal lifestyle fetishes to the middle classes are back at a newspaper close to you. Amazingly, just six years after a property crash, which destroyed much of the economy, chatter about house prices appears to be back, or at least, out of social quarantine. Any day soon, expect a new TV programme on house hunting, the joys of home makeovers or the allure of trading up. Why do we allow ourselves to be taken in by this nonsense? Every spring since the crash, the estate agents and the property industry have tried to re-launch the property market with puff pieces, hard selling and gimmicks. Yet underneath the hype, the evidence from the hous...

PLANNING AND THE RING OF KERRY: YOU CAN almost hear Jackie Healy-Rae saying it – “the plannin’ is terrible round here”... What some Kerry people mean by this, of course, is not that the landscape has been chewed up by haphazard housing, but that it can be damned difficult to get permission to build in certain areas. The stark statistics do not bear this out. Altogether, there are at least 34,000 one-off houses in the countryside, accounting for more than half of Kerry’s housing stock or seven per kilometre of public road. That’s an awful lot of houses strewn around the landscape of a county that was recently voted the “most scenic” in Ireland. Kerry’s senior planner Paul Stack has been outspoken about the “incredible damage” done by the proliferation of housing. After an absence of 14 years, he “couldn’t believe what I came back to, planning went out of control”. “It’s like the Celtic Tiger – we knew we were wrong and we kept going,” he told councillors in July. “Eighty per cen...

Mortgage misery index shows commuters' pain... DURING the Celtic Tiger era, the most high-profile example of how the country was finally wealthy was the booming numbers who constituted Ireland's 'rich list'. However, the new realities of post-boom Ireland are epitomised by a county-by-country breakdown of the numbers receiving Mortgage Interest Relief Supplement (MIRS), that has just been compiled by the Department of Social Protection. MIRS is a scheme whereby the Department of Social Protection pays the interest part of a mortgage when householders become unemployed and can no longer meet their payments. Such payments are supposed to be short term -- although in practice this is no longer the case -- and are meant only to cover the interest element of the mortgage. After a modest start to the scheme, the numbers availing of it -- and therefore its cost -- have almost quadrupled. Unsurprisingly, the department's figures indicate that the two counties wi...

Beat the recession: get two houses for price of one... THERE was a time when you had to queue around the block to ensure you could buy a house in a new housing estate. But now you can 'Buy One and Get One Free'. An estate agent yesterday launched the novel offer on houses in Co Donegal -- with a price tag for both of €100,000. Two sets of properties went on the market in Letterkenny and Milford at that price with a third set of semi-detached homes being offered for €120,000. The house at No 28 Coopers Crest in Milford is a three-bedroom semi-detached home with a fitted kitchen, fireplace and a garden. And anyone prepared to fork out €100,000 for the home will get No 29 absolutely free. The same deal is on offer for four-bedroom semis No 41 and No 42 Gleann Rua in Letterkenny, with No 37 and No 38 slightly more expensive at €120,000. Unlike other bargain sales of properties around the country in recent times, this sale comes with a good news story. Estate agent...

The Nama factor is about to be tested this Saturday with the launch of 13 apartments in Belarmine, Stepaside on Dublin’s southside. This will be the first of Castlethorn Construction’s housing developments to be sold by Nama and the first significant Nama disposal of new homes on Dublin’s southside. The new homes are in Belarmine Hall (below) and Belarmine Plaza. Sherry FitzGerald has been appointed the selling agent and is quoting minimum reserves from €119,950 for the four one-bed apartments, reserves from €159,950 for a pair of three-bed apartments and from €189,950 for six three-bed units. By “minimum reserve” they mean don’t bother trying to haggle the prices downwards at the launch. About 30 of the units were sold in early 2009 when prices for two beds were €200,000-€250,000. The apartments are fully finished with appliances and BER certs and come with a designated parking space per apartment. Ivan Gaine of Sherry FitzGerald says the launch will be a good test of the mark...

ESRI has been getting its forecasts wrong for years... In Irish economic circles, you tend to take much more stick from having been right than having been wrong. Those economists who got it wrong in the boom and believed the hype about the soft landing, such as the ESRI, still manage to grab front-page headlines. In contrast, those who called it right are put under constant scrutiny and are still being dismissed by the establishment as cranks, celebrities or, at best, lucky opportunists. The "insiders" rally round each other even when they are wrong and the "outsiders" are denigrated. In the economics world, for what it's worth, the outsiders' crime -- the crime of being right -- is particularly dangerous precisely because it exposes the limitations of the insiders. This type of insider/outsider prototype is commonplace in Ireland. Yesterday, we saw more of this type of behaviour where the establishment insiders carry on with their forecasts despite th...

Building ban on rezoned land leaves taxpayer with huge bill... THE taxpayer will be forced to pick up the tab as councils ban housing on massive banks of land -- bought for billions by property speculators at the height of the boom. The value of development sites has plummeted by more than 90pc, after councils rezoned land which is no longer needed for housing. The Irish Independent has learned that 12 of the country's 34 local authorities have already dezoned or banned development on lands. The remainder will do so by the end of the year, under a radical shake-up of planning system countrywide. But the move will have serious implications for taxpayers. Banks lent billions for speculative deals on those lands which have since collapsed -- with the State now forced to pick up the bill. Housing will now no longer be allowed to be built on 8,000 hectares previously earmarked for development in 12 local authorities alone. At the height of the boom, this land could have sold f...

Zonning frenzy brought us down - and made us finally see sense... THE maps would arrive in their hundreds, each accompanied by a letter urging the council to rezone the highlighted land for housing. "When a review of a development plan started, and people saw the notices in the paper, that's when the race started," one insider said. Everyone with a few acres believed their land was ripe for a few houses or apartments. And for the most part, city and county councillors obliged, zoning more than 44,000 hectares of land for housing, even though there was need for only a fraction of that. Eventually the State was awash with unfinished developments and NAMA found itself lumped with €73bn of land and development loans. We've finally come full circle, and are in the middle of moving to a system whereby land will only be earmarked for housing when there is clear evidence there will be enough people to live there. Every council in the country has been told to int...

Figures dispel myth that we're top home buyers in Europe... HOME ownership in Ireland is in line with the average in the European Union -- debunking the myth that home ownership here is among the highest in the EU. The Spanish, Greeks, Portuguese and people in a host of former Eastern Bloc states all have higher ownership levels than Ireland, figures obtained by the Irish Independent show. Some 74pc of Irish people own their own home. This is in line with the average for the 27 members of the EU. Ireland ranks 18th in home ownership levels out of 31 countries looked by the the EU statistics agency Eurostat. The figures are for 2009, the latest available. The highest home ownership is in Romania (96pc), followed by Lithuania (91pc), Hungary (89pc), Slovakia (89pc), Estonia (87pc), Latvia (87pc), Bulgaria (87pc), Norway (85pc), Iceland (84pc), Spain (83pc), Slovenia (81pc), Malta (79pc), Czech Republic (77pc) and Greece (76pc). Ireland comes in at 73.7pc, while 70pc of pe...

Millions wiped off value of land in dezoning... DEVELOPERS have taken massive hits on the value of their land banks, as one-in-three local authorities have dezoned land earmarked for development. The moved has wiped hundreds of millions off the value of land across the country -- with taxpayers facing a massive bill for NAMA loans linked to land returning to agricultural use. Planning Minister Willie Penrose said yesterday that 12 of the State's 34 local authorities had made changes to their development plans which has resulted in thousands of sites now being classed as unsuitable for development. Last year, local authorities were ordered to dezone, rezone or forbid development on massive land banks to comply with tough new planning guidelines which set out where houses and commercial units could be built. The move came because councillors had zoned enough land during the boom years to build more than a million homes that were not needed. Councils had previously zoned m...

Number of 'ghost' estates four times initial estimate... THE number of 'ghost' housing estates stands at 2,700 -- four times higher than thought, according to the first official government estimate. This means that taxpayers face an even bigger bill for the mess caused by developers and the banks. Ghost estates are defined as those that contain unfinished, unoccupied, or partially occupied house and apartment blocks. The first government-ordered audit of how many such estates exist has now revealed the extent of the problem. A previous estimate, earlier this year, calculated there were 621. Many of the estates in the new total of 2,700 are located in the midlands and north-west, the Irish Independent has learnt. The report outlines six categories of properties,ranging from those which are 'turn key''-- finished but unoccupied-- to estates where only preliminary groundwork has taken place. Other estates are partially occupied, but have half-built houses and a...

Economic downturn wipes 50pc off value of homes... LARGE detached family homes in the capital have halved in value in the downturn. Estate agents admit four- and five-bedroom detached properties in Dublin are now only fetching 50pc of their 2007 prices. This means upwardly-mobile couples who shelled out an average of €1m at the height of the boom years are now sitting in a house worth just €500,000. The Irish Auctioneers and Valuers Institute (IAVI), which represents auctioneers around the country, says that houses nationally are now worth 40pc less than at the peak. Connacht has seen the smallest drop in house prices but even these are dramatic. The average two-bedroom townhouse in the region has fallen in value by 27.7pc. Things are much worse in Dublin for struggling homeowners who are seeing themselves plunged further into negative equity as prices have plummeted by half. But this is all good news for buyers with cash today. The IAVI annual property survey released shows that new t...

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...

Cowen says FF should have taxed property more... THE GOVERNENT should have taxed property more and spent less during the economic boom, the Taoiseach said last night on the Late Late Show with new host Ryan Tubridy. Under questioning from Tubridy about what he accepted blame for during his years as Minsiter for Finance, Mr Cowen said “looking back now we should have taxed housing more than we did”. When Tubridy asked Mr Cowen why this was not done, he said: “Because at the time there was no-one suggesting that that was a policy intiative that was relevant or that was going to solve the problem.” Tubridy again asked the Taoiseach to clarify what he accepted he had done wrong, and Mr Cowen said: “If I knew then what we know now we wouldnt have spent as much.” However, Mr Cowen said he wanted to make the points that during the economic boom Ireland was still reducing its debt, still had surpluses, and was not spending everything that was coming in. He insisted that the decisions taken wer...

Almost €200m was wiped off the value of houses in price reductions in less than a month by sellers desperate to offload their properties, the Sunday Independent can reveal. In what is being described as the introduction of "a major dose of reality" to the housing market, price drops of over 50 per cent have been reported on many houses, particularly in the Dublin area. Price reductions before last month had slowed, with sellers refusing to budge below their expectations, but the lack of activity has forced them to massively reduce their original prices in order to sell, industry figures have said. IrishPropertyWatch.com, which charts property price falls and increases, in a report on the period March 15 to the April 20, showed that over 3,700 properties dropped their prices, while only a small number raised theirs. The largest drop in price was over €1m, from €2.9m to €1.9m, while the average price drop was €41,989. It's report showed that over 80 per cent of houses had ...

Cowen's call to arms in time of need... The nation is demanding an Obama-esque state of the nation address from the Taoiseach. Here, Frank McNally offers his take on what Brian Cowen might say... ‘FRIENDS, CITIZENS, COUNTRYMEN: lend me your ears! And not just your ears. If there’s anything else you can lend me, all pledges would be gratefully accepted. We have people ready to take your call now at the number showing on screen. But I’ll come back to that later. Sixty-five years ago, in the midst of another national emergency, Éamon de Valera addressed the people, much as I am doing this evening, and chose the occasion to outline his vision of the ideal Ireland. He said the country of which he dreamed was one whose people would be satisfied with frugal comforts, and who devoted their leisure time to things of the spirit. It was a land in which material wealth would be valued only as the basis for right living; a land whose countryside was bright with cosy homesteads; whose fields wer...

Dublin council to reduce affordable house prices... DUBLIN CITY Council is to discount its total stock of affordable homes to get rid of a backlog of 300 unsold houses that are costing the council upwards of €300,000 a month in bridging loans and fees. The council is to offer further discounts of about 25 per cent on houses it had already discounted by up to 35 per cent of the original market price to compete with developers’ discounts. Developers must provide 20 per cent of any new housing estate or complex for social and affordable housing. A discounted price for the affordable units is agreed on the market price. The discount in Dublin is generally in the region of 30 – 35 per cent. The council gives the developer names of people who are eligible to buy an affordable house. If two affordable house buyers reject the house or apartment, the council is obliged to buy it from the developer at the agreed discounted price. In a rising market, this system worked well. However, now that hou...

Ireland's Property Market: A Fallen Star? Ronan Lyons, Daft's in-house economist, commenting on the latest Daft research on the Irish property market... When we look back at 2008 in a few years' time, I think it's fair to say we will regard it as the annus horribilis for Ireland's property market. In late 2006, we issued a report which was the first to spot a slowdown in the property market. At the time, it was our view - unpopular though it was - that rising interest rates and high levels of supply would lead to a levelling off in house prices. This turns out to only have been the start of the story. Bursting onto the world stage at the end of the 1990s, Ireland was heralded as an economic phenomenon and rapidly became a global superstar and poster-child for economic development. But recently it looks like it's all just falling apart. Nowhere is this more evident than in Ireland's housing market - until recently the engine of Ireland's economic growth. ...

25pc afraid of losing jobs as confidence hits a record low... MORE than a quarter of workers fear that they are about to lose their jobs, while one in five thinks their personal financial circumstances will worsen in the next year. But the number of people who fear redundancy in the private sector is likely to be even higher as the survey did not distinguish between public and private sector workers. The Ipsos Mori poll, seen exclusively by the Irish Independent, reveals that consumers' confidence in their personal finances is at its lowest level since the survey was first conducted in 1999. Recessionary times are striking fear into workers with more than a quarter of workers afraid that they are about to lose their jobs. Younger people are more insecure about their jobs than older workers, the survey conducted among 1,500 people between July and September shows. More than a third of those aged between 16 and 24 are concerned about the possibility of being made redundant. Almost th...

Country now paying for 'one hell of a borrowing binge'... WE HAVE been on "one hell of a borrowing and spending binge" in recent years and now we have to face up to a radical change in our standard of living and expectations , the Céifin conference heard. Jim Power, chief economist with Friends First, said the Government's role in allowing spending to grow by 10-12 per cent a year in recent years was "absolutely criminal" and we would now pay for that mismanagement. Personal debt rose from €20 billion to more than €140 billion between 1999 and 2007, he said. "That is . . . one hell of a borrowing binge." Asked about the role of the banks in fuelling spending, Mr Power said he had worked as a banker for 20 "very unhappy years" and the incentivisation structures always worried him. "You were incentivised on the quantity of what you sold, not on the quality. I think the incentivisation structure did encourage irresponsible behaviour...