Daft Property - Irish Property News

Property crash wipes €257bn off value of homes in six years... IRELAND'S homeowners have collectively lost an estimated €257bn in property value in the six years since the market began to crumble, the Irish Independent can reveal. The 50pc collapse in value since the peak of 2007 also means that by the Central Bank's own estimates, Ireland's crash has now become the worst experienced by any country in the world. The combined loss to the owners of Irish residential properties since the bubble burst equates to almost four times Ireland's total bailout sum of €67.5bn and more than half the total amount of money first set aside in the European Union's €500bn Financial Stability Facility. The PTSB/ESRI Index, Ireland's former national price barometer, showed average house prices standing at €310,632 at the start of 2007. An estimated drop of 50pc in value puts the average loss to an Irish household at €155,316. With 1.6 million households across the co

Homeowners to blame for crisis too, says Bruton Irish people 'ought to have been aware where things were going' when buying during boom... FORMER Taoiseach John Bruton says that Irish people "ought to have been aware where things were going" with the economy when they bought houses during the boom. "I have been someone who has been very critical of the EU authorities and the ECB and others in not using powers that they clearly had under the treaties to ensure prudential supervision both in the countries lending to Ireland and in the Irish banks themselves, and I think there is a responsibility there that I don't row back from, but, on the other hand, we also ought to have been aware where things were going. "Everybody could see that house prices were rising faster [than they should have been]," Mr Bruton -- who now holds the position of president of the IFSC -- told the Sunday Independent. The former Taoiseach's attempt to add ordinary