Daft Property - Irish Property News

We will default, so let's get on with it. But it's not all bad -- a top financier thinks Ireland's glass is half full and our bank debts will be shared... Ireland will default, when it does happen we should not do it alone but with Greece and Portugal; we should consider leaving Europe given how badly they treat us; we need to take a scalpel to our public sector and Ireland will take five to seven years from now to recover. Those are the views of Larry McDonald, former Lehman Brothers vice president turned international best-selling author, who was in Dublin last week speaking at the Irish Funds Industry Association. McDonald was, until September 2008, vice president of distressed debt and convertible securities trading at Lehman Brothers. He was heralded by many colleagues at Lehman for both his early 2006 call on the subprime crisis and the $46m in trading profits realised from it. I sat down with him on Friday afternoon last in the heart of the IFSC to discuss ...

10.8pc plunge in Irish house prices... House prices in Ireland are falling at a double-digit rate but property values in other countries are showing signs of stabilising, research indicated today. The average cost of a home in Ireland dropped by 10.8pc during 2010 as the market suffered from the fall-out of the country's economic problems, according to estate agent Knight Frank. The drop was the biggest recorded for the total of nearly 50 countries looked at by the group. The pace of the falls are also showing little sign of easing, with property losing 3.5pc of its value during the final quarter alone. Steep price falls were also seen in Dubai, with property values diving by 6.1pc during the third quarter of 2010, the latest quarter for which figures are available. But there was better news for those who have bought second homes in France, with house prices in the country actually rising by 9.5pc during 2010. The more conservative French mortgage market means that hous...

Thousands of Irish people who bought homes abroad, for their holidays or as a pension, are selling up – if they can UP TO HALF or more of the Irish people who bought properties abroad during the Celtic Tiger years may now be trying to sell them, according to estimates by estate agents. Their success or failure – and whether they sell at a loss – depends on where they bought and when. “Of the 250 Irish people who bought properties through us between 2003 and 2008 along the Promenade des Anglais in Nice, between 50 per cent and 60 per cent are now selling them or have sold them,” according to Kirkor Ajderhanyan, director of Agence 107 Promenade, an agency which specialises in selling properties with sea views on Nice’s seafront. “There were so many of them that we used to call it the Promenade des Irlandais at the time. But most will make an average gain of 25 to 30 per cent,” he claims. On the other hand, Irish agent Hilary Larkin, who sells properties in nearby Cannes, says tha...

Ireland's Problems Have Euro Zone Worried... The PIIGS are not out of the woods yet. Ireland's ongoing economic woes have financial markets concerned that the country might need an EU bailout. A new round of austerity measures could trigger a downward spiral. Sean FitzPatrick, 62, couldn't help smirking when he appeared before the judges of the High Court in Dublin last Wednesday. FitzPatrick, who is Ireland's most famous banker, had already declared personal bankruptcy last summer, after accumulating €145 million ($195 million) in debt. His monthly income is currently €188, FitzPatrick's legal counsel informed the court. But he will only be a poor man if his wife Catriona leaves him. The six houses and the rights to a retirement fund which is worth millions belong in part to her, and cannot simply be seized by creditors. FitzPatrick owes the largest sum to the Anglo Irish Bank, where he served as chairman until late 2008. "The bank granted him and his relative...

Debt crisis to worsen as markets target Ireland... Ireland has lost control of its financial fate and its future is now in the hands of the markets, one of Europe's leading sovereign bond commentators has said. Luca Cazzulani, deputy head of fixed income at Italian-German bank UniCredit, said the Irish and Portuguese governments could do little to influence their fate because the markets had signaled them out from the so-called PIIGS - Portugal Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain - for extreme scrutiny. He forecast that key sovereign interest rates in Ireland and Portugal, which rose last week to more than 5.5%, were "unlikely" to fall back below 5% because markets were not anticipating good news from Europe. "If anything, we are likely to get further bad news," Cazzulani warned. Irish and Portuguese sovereign interest rates could stay "very high" for five or six months. "If so, then we are going to face a series of stresses because these levels are ...

Is it time to start thinking the unthinkable? If our membership of the eurozone was the cause of our woes, perhaps leaving the club would help fix things... AS the Greek financial crisis continues to worsen and shows signs of spreading to other eurozone countries, is it time to start thinking the unthinkable? With Portugal and Spain now in the firing line, we in Ireland need to start asking the hard questions about both our exchange rate policy and our debt mountain. On Tuesday, Finance Minister Brian Lenihan was quoted as saying that leaving the euro would be a "disaster" for Ireland. "Were a country to contemplate leaving the euro there would a flight of capital and a collapse of the banking system", according to Mr Lenihan. While we have no reason to doubt the minister's sincerity, the fact that he is even discussing the issue, even if only to rubbish the possibility of Ireland exiting the single currency, demonstrates that the worsening of the Greek crisis h...