Daft Property - Irish Property News

Building slowdown stalls attempt to complete 2,000 'ghost' estates... WORK TO complete the State’s 2,000 unfinished housing developments has stalled due to a 40 per cent drop in on-site construction activity this year, according to the latest figures from the Department of the Environment. However, the vacancy rate of completed houses on “ghost” estates has fallen by one-fifth since the department published its survey on the extent of the problem last year. In addition, demolition has begun on estates were there is no prospect of completion, the department said. Last October the department published its first national survey of the extent of the ghost estate problem, where developments are left unfinished and only a fraction of homes are occupied. It identified more than 2,800 unfinished or vacant housing estates. A year on, some 700 estates have been completed and a further 100 on which no substantial work had started have been taken out of development, leaving a tot...

For sale: the post-bubble rubble. €4,000 or nearest offer... SMALL PRINT: ON TUESDAY, an intriguing notice appeared in the small ads section on the back page of this newspaper. It read: “Arch for sale. This arch was built by artist Emma Houlihan. It was part of a Nama-related art project and built from the reconstituted rubble of a destroyed Leitrim house. Custom built. Perfect for gardens and spaces. Can function as a sculpture or a functional object.” There was a number listed to call, for queries about “cost and shipping”. Emma Houlihan was in Stockholm this week, where a number of interested parties had already called her number, although no solid offers of purchase had so far been made. What is this “arch” she is selling? “It’s a project I undertook while artist-in-residence for the Leitrim Sculpture Centre last summer,” she says. “It struck me that Leitrim was the ghost estate capital of Ireland, and I wanted to make a piece of art connected with that fact. I was mostly i...