Daft Property - Irish Property News

The legacy of the boom and the subsequent property collapse have come home to roost in 2012. This is the year the Nama deferred payment scheme was launched, a ghost estate was sold at a distressed property auction, and the country’s most expensive property failed to sell despite a 74 per cent price drop. Here are 10 properties that sum up where we are now ... 1. Walford, Shrewsbury Road Now that the madness of the property boom is a distant memory, it has become apparent that not only was Walford on Shrewsbury Road in Dublin 4 never worth the €58 million paid for it in 2005, it has failed to find a buyer for it, even at the radically reduced price of €15 million. The Edwardian house on 1.8 acres went on the market in September 2011 but was recently withdrawn, presumably because it failed to meet the guide price. When it was sold in 2005, the cachet of the road and the development potential drove rich individuals into a frenzy, pushing the price substantially ove...

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...

THE most comprehensive report on the Irish property market is out and it evidences the total destruction of wealth of a certain generation. According to the wonderfully detailed work done by Ronan Lyons at Daft.ie, asking prices countrywide fell by just over 4pc in the second three months of the year -- a slightly larger fall than in the first quarter. The average asking price nationally in the second quarter of 2010 was just over €224,000 -- 36pc below its 2007 peak. The acceleration in price falls will come as little surprise, but the question now is how can a generation whose balance sheet has been so totally vaporised ever start spending again? Back in 2007, I wrote a book called 'The Generation Game', which focused on how the generation between the ages of 30 and 40, who had got into the housing market via huge mortgages, would be financially eviscerated. This group was termed "the juggling generation" because they were trying to juggle being good parents and go...

Devastating 'pyrite epidemic' hits 20,000 newly built houses... UP to 20,000 homeowners are facing the devastating "pyrite problem" which is destroying recently built houses. The Irish Independent has learned that this many claims for pyrite-related damage, such as cracked floors and walls, have been made to the builders' insurance company HomeBond -- which may not have enough funds to cover the cost of all the claims. Its cash reserves have dropped from €50m in 2007 to €26m, according to its latest accounts, due to declining stock market returns. This means it would only be able to pay around €1,250 per household. The average cost of removing the pyrite from a house and repairing the damage is between €50,000 and €70,000. HomeBond only covers a portion of the cost if the builder is liquidated or unable to pay for all the repairs -- so families are facing potentially huge bills to repair their homes. The claims against HomeBond are separate to a landmark case pres...

THE average price of a house in Ireland is now €70,000 less than at the peak of the property boom, according to new figures. Dublin and commuter belt homeowners have been particularly badly hit by the ongoing downturn in house prices. The latest Permanent tsb/ESRI monthly figures on house sales show the average price of a house nationally in June was just over €240,000. This is down from €311,000 in February 2007 when the market peaked. In Dublin, the average price of a home is now just under €320,000. This is a drop of over 15pc on the same time last year, considerably worse than the 10pc average fall outside of the capital. It is expected that the trend will continue for the immediate future, said a spokesperson for Permanent TSB. "The index today confirms the pattern of recent months. Poor demand and significant oversupply have combined to cancel out the benefits of lower interest rates to mean that prices continue to weaken. This pattern is likely to persist for some time,...

'I moved from a three-bedroom house into a six-bedroom house. So I'm stuck' . HARD TIMES: Dublin families who moved to the commuter belt in search of a better life are among those now queuing for a living... IT’S AN eerily quiet midweek morning in Cavan town. Until recently, processions of lorries thundered through here at rush-hour and heedless streams of cars clogged up the narrow approach roads. Today, traffic glides through the town. The mid-term break from school means it’s quieter than normal, but local people say the long traffic jams have all but disappeared, even on normal weekdays. Greg (47), a father of five, would welcome the quieter roads and the faster journey to work, except he’s signing on the live register for the first time. He’s one of a swarm of Dublin migrants who sold modest properties in the capital and bought large, detached trophy homes in commuter-belt towns across the south of Cavan such as Virginia, Ballyjamesduff and Bailieborough. Some, though,...

M3 Madness: The M3 motorway being built, by the Irish Government, in one of Ireland’s major historic areas has been condemned in a BBC documentary, Tar on Tara, by Seamus Heaney, The Nobel Laureate, and many others. Crazy Property Prices: Due to crazy property prices in the Capital, Meath and Cavan is now home to thousands that commute to Dublin. The infrstructure has not kept up pace with this hideous urban sprawl - the only railway line is for freight only so commuters must rely on road transport. The current N3 has some of the worst traffic jams in Ireland! Heritage Destroyed: A new road was needed but why choose the Tara Skreen valley? This is a place of huge historical and religious significance in Ireland for thousands of years. Seamus Heaney on BBC: “I think it literally desecrates an area - I mean the word means to de-sacralise and for centuries the Tara landscape and the Tara sites have been regarded as part of the sacred ground" Celtic Tiger Attacks: “It will be a sort ...