Daft Property - Irish Property News

2008 Review: AGENT SPEAK: Jargon busting guide - revised for the recession... BROWSING ON the internet, I came across a very helpful guide to property and financial jargon which was thoughtfully provided by Sherry FitzGerald. I felt obliged, however, to write up a revised version, which might be more suited to today's virtually non-existent property market. Approval in principle : valid for no longer than 14 days from date of issue. Appreciation : no longer applicable to Irish property. Arrears : the term most frequently used this year. Asking price : well, you can always ask, but don't expect to receive. Auction : an extraordinary event where people actually competed with each other in order to buy a property. No longer necessary. Auctioneer/estate agent : a dying breed (from starvation). Arrangement fee : another bank scam. Best and final offer : that's all you're getting. Actually, no, cut that by €50,000. Bidding : a reckless act. Booking deposit : the money the dev

Falling prices represent new reality... At the end of last year, estate agents and vendors alike were reeling from the price drops that the market had experienced during 2007. But although they were shell-shocked, many industry experts were predicting that the rate at which prices were dropping would slow during 2008, and that prices would stabilise. Twelvemonths on, that now seems like nothing more than wishful thinking. The banking crisis, soaring unemployment and extremely poor consumer confidence have all resulted in the market having one of its worst years in living memory, a fact underlined last week by a survey which found that 80 per cent of estate agents were selling less than three properties a month. Even those potential buyers who are interested in buying are finding funding increasingly difficult to source, although observers are hopeful that the European Central Bank’s (ECB) policy of aggressive rate cuts will go some way towards alleviating that problem. With asking pric

Homes at a discount - but are they still a good buy? 2008 Review: AFFORDABLE HOMES: There are lots of apartments and houses for sale under the Government's Affordable Homes schemes, writes Frances O'Rourke AOIFE MACMAHON had been renting for years when she applied to Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council (DLRCOCO) for an affordable house in November 2005. "The property market was at its peak and my mum urged me to apply. A couple of weeks later I got a letter saying I was number 168 on the list." After that, Aoife - a single 36-year-old media buyer with an income under the €58,000 affordable eligibility threshold - forgot about her application. She was happy to go on renting her apartment near the Luas in Dundrum; she had lived there for over five years but buying "was off the radar - apartments cost from €600,000 up" and anyway she had always dreamed of living near the sea. In January 2007 she got a call from the council. "There was a two-bed unit avai

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

140,000 homeowners 'have fallen into negative equity'... Jim Power, chief economist with Friends First, said: "I reckon the majority of first-time buyers who bought into the market over the last three years are in negative equity." Analysing the gains made up to the peak of the housing boom, and the losses since, Mr Power said negative equity was affecting "at least 140,000 people and that's rising by the day". He warned that, in terms of the recession, "we haven't seen anything yet" and predicted the numbers in negative equity could reach 200,000 by the end of 2009. Latest Census figures show there were 570,000 residential mortgage holders in 2006, with tens of thousands of new mortgages taken out since. So the continuing decline in house prices means that one in three mortgage holders are likely find themselves trapped in a home worth less than the loan they took out to pay for it. With €125bn owed on Irish mortgages, homeowners facing r

With the market at its lowest point for many years, it's difficult to establish the right price for a property. Orna Mulcahy asked agents to nominate homes that represent good value. Simon Carswell suggests who might buy them, and how the purchase could be financed... FALLING PROPERTY prices may make it appear that there are bargains to be found out there but the tightening on mortgages means that borrowers will be fighting for higher loans. The credit crunch has forced lenders to seek larger cash deposits and higher borrowing costs from their new mortgage customers. The maximum mortgage to first-time buyers has been capped at 92 per cent by most lenders and standard variable rates have risen by an average of half a percentage point over the last year as the banks' own funding costs have risen. However, prices on many houses have reduced substantially to sell and banks are still open to lend mortgages to customers with large lump sums and a strong ability to repay. AIB, the lar

Looks like Interest Rates in Ireland rates will be dropping. According to a report, in The Irish Independent Newspaper (www.independent.ie), The European Central Bank (ECB) yesterday paved the way for the first cuts in nearly five years! ECB president Jean Claude Trichet left rates unchanged when the ECB met yesterday and there was no mention of increases. David Tilson of Bank of Ireland, said: "The ECB has effectively dropped its threat to raise interest rates." Skip the Champagne... Don't start celebrating yet - most of top analysts believe there will be no rate drops until the second half of 2008 (at the earliest)!

Irish Property Market...Fact is Fiction & TV Reality? I love this!...A mockumentary video, used to promote a new property website for Ireland. This video fooled both the national broadcaster and city officials!