Daft Property - Irish Property News

How this crippling new homes levy will hit Dubliners 3 times as hard... DUBLINERS face having to pay almost three times as much property tax as householders outside the capital. The controversial tax is due to be rolled out across the board this summer at a 0.18pc rate of the value of the property. But the discrepancies between how much householders in the capital will have to pay compared to people living in towns and cities elsewhere suggests the tax may be one of the most divisive ever. Today the Herald highlights the disparity between the charge on homes in Dublin and two medium-sized towns, close to Cork and Galway cities. We have selected three types of houses - a four-bed detached, a three-bed semi-detached and a three-bed terraced - for comparison purposes. The big difference between the houses in each type is their location and price. Unfair Homeowners are due to receive an estimate on their bill from the Revenue in March. They must submit their valuation by Ma

Another year over, what do we know? Five years on from the crash, what have we learned? There is no magic solution but we are still thinking like an island. In the end, not even sex could sell Belmayne. Nearly six years ago the north Dublin estate seared itself in the nation’s memory, with images of couples cavorting on kitchen counters, all in the desperate hope of arousing interest in an increasingly flaccid property market. At the now infamous launch party, the developer of Belmayne, Donal Caulfield, wearing a diamante-studded Roberto Cavalli beanie, promised buyers “gorgeous living” in four-bedroom houses with curved walls, all for €600,000.  (Below: one of the famous “gorgeous living” ads) The “gorgeous living” hoardings are long gone, as are the prices. No-nonsense signs on the Malahide Road now advertise houses in Belmayne starting from €245,000. Belmayne is just one attraction in north Dublin’s property market Ground Zero. In 10 minutes you can drive from the evacua

HOUSE prices could decline by another 20pc from their current levels while variable rates are due to go up again, an international agency has warned. And ongoing rises in mortgage arrears mean borrowers in this country are effectively on strike, credit ratings agency Fitch said. But despite this, there is likely to be a moderate rise in lending to first-time buyers this year. The agency, in a report on the global mortgage market, said property prices here could fall as much as 20pc, but it has assumed a 10pc decrease. Since the bursting of the property bubble, prices have dropped by 50pc, to take the average value to €160,000. Another 20pc fall would take the average price nationally to €128,000. The agency, which rates the economic solidity of countries and companies, said there were signs that prices have stabilised, but a glut of unoccupied properties outside the cities and muted mortgage lending meant price rises were likely to be limited this year. The number of

Revenue table of local property tax bands at a tax rate of 18% for 2013 and 2014: Revenue is to send homeowners an estimated value of their home and property tax due, in letters to be issued in the coming weeks. The local property tax payable on the market value of a property is to come into force from July and will be administered by Revenue. Revenue will write to residential property owners in March including notification of an estimated amount of local property tax, a booklet on the operation of the tax, valuation procedures and payment methods and a form for completion. The completed forms with a self-assessment of property value will have to be sent back to Revenue by May 7th on paper or May 28th electronically. The return will be valid until 2016 unless circumstances change. If Revenue believes the amount of property value declared does not reflect the market value, it may question the declaration. If people refuse to pay or do not send back the form the tax

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

House prices go into reverse as property register takes guesswork out of buying... HOUSE prices fell last month in a move that reverses rises in the previous three months. The fall of 0.6pc in October means that prices have now risen in five of the 10 months of this year so far.  The value of the average property in the State is now half of what it was during the peak in the market in 2007. Dublin prices were down 0.2pc in October, and are 7pc lower in the year so far. Residential property prices in the capital are 56pc lower than they were when the market was at its highest, according to the CSO index. Prices outside of Dublin were down 0.9pc last month, and are now down 47pc from the peak. Some property experts said the introduction of the new property price register in September prompted falls in prices, as people can now seen exactly what prices houses and apartments are selling for, rather than relying on estate agents. The average value of a property nationally is

How the great Irish fairy tale hides the true horror story... Gene Kerrigan's new book presents an alternative view of the economic crisis, suggesting that some people are actually benefiting from austerity policies. We've been subjected to the Big Lie. We are not all in this together, as this extract reveals By now, they can recite the fairy tale in their sleep. Politicians, their media fans, tame economists and hired mouthpieces use the fairy tale to explain what happened. Like all stories, the details can be changed from time to time, but the basic fairy tale about the Celtic Bubble, the crash and the recession is pretty consistent. And it goes like this. Once upon a time, the Irish people threw off the shackles of the past that held us back. We began to work hard, to innovate, to find within us the talents we always had but which had been suppressed or neglected for too long. In the bad old days, you see, the Brits held us back, or perhaps the Catholic Church sti

The term ghost estates colloquially refers to the list of 2,000 unfinished housing developments  compiled by the Department of the Environment. Dublin doesn’t do too badly in the 2011 rankings with 95 estates identified in the city council area, compared to 149 in neighbouring Fingal. The other two Dublin councils also returned quite positive figures; Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council has 60 unfinished developments and South Dublin County Council 50. It’s clear the capital has escaped lightly when some of the numbers recorded in sparsely populated counties are considered. Sligo has 237 unfinished developments, Roscommon has 235. Dublin also has a low number of estates considered the most problematic. These are the developments where residents’ living conditions are such that they are not required to pay the household charge, generally where the developer has abandoned the unfinished estate. Only 19 estates in the city council area are on this list. Elm Park was on the depa

THE CHOICE of investment properties available to Irish and overseas buyers is steadily increasing with the launch today of a marketing campaign for an entire development of 62 apartments and penthouses next to the North Circular Road entrance to the Phoenix Park in Dublin 7. David Browne of agent HT Meagher O’Reilly is seeking €9 million for the high quality scheme which was completed 12 years ago by Tony Gannon’s Unicorn Homes. The investment will show a net yield of 7.78 per cent. The broad mix of apartments in Park Lodge are fully occupied and are producing a rent roll of €823,000 per annum. The location has proved extremely popular from the start – beside the Phoenix Park and five minutes walk from the Luas at Heuston Station which travels past the Four Courts to the city centre. The five-storey apartment block is also a few hundred yards from the newly-built Criminal Courts of Justice on Infirmary Road. Park Lodge was developed on the site of the old Park Lodge Hotel, onc

Parknasilla sells for over €10 million to overseas investor... LESS THAN seven weeks after being offered for sale, the Parknasilla Resort Spa in Co Kerry has been taken off the market after a satisfactory offer was received by selling agent Savills. An overseas buyer is understood to have offered in excess of the guide price of €10 million for the four-star resort which is being sold on behalf of Bank of Scotland (Ireland). The Sneem hotel was bought six years ago by property developer Bernard McNamara for almost €40 million. He subsequently spent at least €30 million on enlarging and upgrading the resort and building 62 self-catering lodges and villas in the grounds. Tom Barrett of Savills said the sale had attracted over 100 inquiries, most of them overseas hotel groups and investors. Savills is also close to wrapping up the sale of the Cork International Airport Hotel, also owned by McNamara. An overseas buyer is to pay over €5 million for the facility which was devel

Reality of the market has yet to hit property brochures... It’s almost  the end of 2012  and let’s face it, the property market is all about reality these days…some would say grim reality so why haven’t some estate agents tempered the grandiose  language in their brochures to reflect the general mood, one wonders?  It’s supposed to be a new era of transparency following the introduction of the  Property Services Regulation Act 2011 so shouldn’t that involve a rethink on the adjective  count  in the average brochure? Take for example the use, or misuse,  of the word “residence”  which seems to apply to  the  pokiest townhouse and  modest three-bed semi. While referring to a small house as a residence  isn’t wrong exactly, it is a tad misleading, or it would be if you couldn’t see the photos. Maybe the hope is if they use the word often enough it will subliminally trick the buyer into thinking  they are buying Downton Abbey . There seems to be a brochure  template that some agen

Has the property market truly bottomed out? And not only that, but showing some signs of life? Well yes and no. Very encouraging signs are there for all to see. The newspaper property supplements are less anaemic and signs proclaiming "Sold" which have been as rare as hens' teeth are suddenly being seen in some of the better Dublin enclaves. Agricultural land is making record prices. And there are tentative signs that if potential buyers can survive a searching examination of their finances -- now so intimate that it would shame a proctologist -- there are mortgages being approved. Even property auctions, a leit-motif of the halcyon days of the boom, are making a re-appearance after a five-year absence. While there are huge tracts of the country where the residential property market is still on life support there are at least some signs elsewhere that suggest the patient is out of intensive care. Recovery has started in Dublin, not all of the capital, but in the areas

New blow for house price hopes as market set to fall 60pc from 2007 peak... HOPES of property prices settling down have received a new blow, with a prediction that values will plunge by 60pc from the peak. Prices have already halved, but now credit ratings agency Fitch said they are set to keep falling. A fall of 60pc from 2007 would mean the average house price falling to €125,600 from €314,000 at the peak. There had been some optimism in the last few weeks that prices could be reaching a floor, particularly in Dublin. But the latest official figures show that property prices fell in June, dashing hopes that the market was close to stabilising. The fall of 1.1pc in prices in June recorded by the Central Statistics Office reversed a rise that was recorded in the previous month. Prices have halved from the peak of the market almost five years ago. The CSO figures indicate that the average home is now priced at €156,000, having collapsed to half of its value since the boom that came a

Next big hot potato is property tax of up to €1,000... There's little hope of a property tax being fair and equitable on the already squeezed middle classes, says Daniel McConnell. Can you afford to pay €1,000 a year in a property tax? Well, according to the man charged with designing such a tax, that is what we will, on average, all pay once it is introduced. Don Thornhill, a career civil servant who describes himself now as a consultant "who advises on strategy and policy to a number of leading Irish organisations" has recently presented his report to Minister Phil Hogan recommending how such a property tax should work. Politically toxic and highly unpopular, the lack of enthusiasm of either Fine Gael or Labour to discuss the matter is a clear sign of the trepidation that surrounds the idea of lumping the extra burden on the shoulders of the Irish taxpayer, but in particular the "squeezed middle classes". Phil Hogan's department is saying nothing othe

Property price register pushed out until late September... THE LONG-AWAITED property price register, detailing the sale price of residential properties here, looks like it’s now going to miss its expected summer deadline. Despite being eagerly anticipated by estate agents, homeowners and buyers, and a recent call from the head of Nama to develop a commercial equivalent, the property price register has yet to materialise. So why the delay? The property price database first made the headlines in early 2010 and since then there has been much talk but little action. In December of last year, the register was provided for by legislation, and at the time, it was understood that the register would appear six months later. However, according to Tom Lynch, chief executive of the Property Services Regulatory Authority (PSRA), the register was never going to be ready for June, despite this date being widely reported at the time. “I never said it was June,” he says, adding that the register was s

Russians ride in to rescue Irish apartments in Bulgaria... UP TO 50 Irish-owned apartments in Bulgaria have been bought by Russian property prospectors in the first six months of this year, a Dublin-based property business has said. An estimated 30,000 Irish citizens currently sit on more than €1bn of bad property investments in Bulgaria. Dylan Cullen, head of Appreciating Assets, said growing demand from the former Soviet country for the Bulgarian resorts means Irish people are finally able to offload their unwanted properties. Since the peak of the Bulgarian property-buying frenzy, from 2005 to 2008, Black Sea prices have fallen by between 35pc and 45pc, depending on location. But the Russians and Ukrainians, the two biggest buyer groups, have formed a view that this market looks to be near the bottom. Buyers are back looking at the Black Sea for holiday homes. "The Russians are becoming wealthier and as their middle class expands they want holiday homes," said Mr Cullen.