Daft Property - Irish Property News

Knock knock? Who's there . . . in the market . . . Ireland’s property market is stuck in a vacuum, with the only stimulus coming from the old reliable triggers: birth, marriage, death and, increasingly, debt ARE WE THERE YET? The trip to the bottom of the property market is taking an awful long time. It’s three years since the jitters took hold with talk of empty apartments and stalled sales, two years since the global economy took a nosedive courtesy of Lehman Bros. Savvier individuals would say that they saw the end coming far earlier, as far back as autumn 2006 when auction rooms suddenly emptied. and demand for investment properties waned. Either way it’s been a long grinding descent to the point we’re at now, with house prices halved and empty homes littered across the landscape. Some estate agents insist that the bottom is now and that people can “smell the value out there”. If only the banks would start lending again, they say. However, would-be buyers have plenty of reason ...