Daft Property - Irish Property News

Coalition alarm at Nama property scheme... THERE IS concern within the Government that plans by the National Asset Management Agency to encourage the purchase of thousands of residential properties could artificially inflate the property market. The agency wants to introduce a scheme where it would waive 20 per cent of the purchase price of a home on its books if values were to fall further over the next five years. Nama has suggested the scheme could eventually apply to 5,000 houses and apartments. However, internal briefing material reveals fears within the Department of the Environment that the move would artificially inflate the market before it has hit bottom. It could also prevent homebuyers from realising their homeownership aspirations by preventing prices falling further. Nama is hoping to launch its "deferred purchase" scheme on a trial basis later this year by arranging the sale of about 750 homes. The agency does not need Government approval for the

Figures dispel myth that we're top home buyers in Europe... HOME ownership in Ireland is in line with the average in the European Union -- debunking the myth that home ownership here is among the highest in the EU. The Spanish, Greeks, Portuguese and people in a host of former Eastern Bloc states all have higher ownership levels than Ireland, figures obtained by the Irish Independent show. Some 74pc of Irish people own their own home. This is in line with the average for the 27 members of the EU. Ireland ranks 18th in home ownership levels out of 31 countries looked by the the EU statistics agency Eurostat. The figures are for 2009, the latest available. The highest home ownership is in Romania (96pc), followed by Lithuania (91pc), Hungary (89pc), Slovakia (89pc), Estonia (87pc), Latvia (87pc), Bulgaria (87pc), Norway (85pc), Iceland (84pc), Spain (83pc), Slovenia (81pc), Malta (79pc), Czech Republic (77pc) and Greece (76pc). Ireland comes in at 73.7pc, while 70pc of pe

Property crisis has moved from slump to crash... ...price guide reveals desperate state of the housing market and its negative effect on the value of homes all across Ireland: First, we need to get our terminology right. To date, Ireland’s property crisis has been described as a slowdown, a downturn and a slump. But today the Sunday Times Property Price Guide 2009 shows that we’re in the grip of nothing less than a full-blown crash — and, by world standards, a severe one at that. In recent months, property agents have claimed that successive price surveys have not come close to reflecting the grim reality they have been experiencing on the ground. Now, with the help of our guide, you can realistically assess for the first time how the crash has affected the value of your home. This survey is more accurate than any other; to put it simply, no rival survey is as specific as the Sunday Times Property Price Guide. Here we examine the performance of more than 20 types of property in more th