Daft Property - Irish Property News

A little bit of history repeating... Shoulder pads, Arctic rolls and grown-up boybands. We're reliving our youth... Have you noticed how eerily familiar so many things feel at the moment? Take a walk round the shops and you'll see Dynasty-inspired shoulder pads, stone-washed denim and 1980s neon bright colours. Just recently Blur headlined at Glastonbury, The Eagles played Dublin and Michael Jackson topped the charts. Meanwhile, the hottest rumour circulating in the film world is that singer Rihanna is set to reprise Whitney Houston's role in a remake of 1990s classic, The Bodyguard. The whole world seems to be suffering a collective case of déjà-vu. The nostalgia wave has even hit food. Milky Way has re- issued their 1989 'the red car and the blue car' ad, Birds Eye's Steakhouse and Arctic rolls are back on the shelves after a 12-year absence and Cadbury is describing the re-launch of the Wispa bar as 'the most successful revival ever'. According to ps

We will have to pay for excesses of the past... RECENT economic reports have a hint of desperation about them as they struggle to suggest the battered economy will revive in two years time. The bit between 2009 and 2010 is being glossed over, as the economy is expected to plunge to its worst recession ever in modern history . If it’s true, the 9-10% fall in output this year is from a high base and even if growth reverts back to 2005 levels then that would be no bad thing. That was the year before we built a record 96,000 houses and employment doubled towards 2 million over a 10-year period. That’s all positive, but the reality check still has to kick in. One report from West Cork suggests house prices in some areas are in desperate trouble. One source has reported that 10 houses built in 2007, achieved prices of €400,000, some bought with €390,000 mortgages. But as the market tanked, unsold houses were bought for €180,000, leaving many in negative equity territory. It is also a fact th

Your essential guide to language in the 21st century economy... It's happened to us all. One minute you're in your element, waxing lyrical about the big match over a bag of peanuts down the pub, the next the talk turns to the markets and you're left clutching at more straws than an octopus playing Kerplunk. Worry no more. Like a white knight with a big dictionary under his arm, The Times today charges to the rescue with the Recessionsaurus — Robert Cole's guide to modern vocab. We've listed and defined some of the most common phrases to have cropped up over the past few months, and we hope you find them useful. But this is an interactive service — we want your input, too. Use the Have your Say box below to query any economic tongue twisters and terminology to have come your way recently. We'll monitor your feedback and add new entries, quicker than you can say quantitative easing. Well, almost... Administration One step from bankrupt

How our young will get through the recession... BASICS: Sewing and baking is key... THE younger generation is being urged to get back to basics and learn the long forgotten skills of sewing, baking and fending for themselves in a series of classes to be held in Dublin city. Celebrity chef Darina Allen recently said that elderly people have the know-how to cope with limited budgets, but those in younger age groups may find it difficult to survive in the recession. Helpless "People have been so focused on careers and academia that they are helpless when they lose their jobs," she said. "They don't have money and they realise they don't have skills that would help them through. "From a small budget, grandmothers were able to feed the family," she added. "They could look in the fridge and make a meal out of all sorts of little scraps . That is a skill that's lost - being able to judge it yourself when food is safe to eat and when it is not. It'

If you want to escape, it will cost you... Not so long ago, emigrants were paid to go to Australia -- today, it could cost a few grand to get into Oz...beating the downturn...the hidden cost emigrating to find work. WITH up to 300 jobs a day being lost in Ireland, anyone would be tempted to hop on a plane out of here. Although no country is likely to escape, Canada is expected to avoid the worst blows. Small wonder then that Canada is becoming a more popular place to emigrate to than in the past. Other favourites include Australia and New Zealand. Although the US and Britain have their fair share of recession blues, the traditional links between both countries and Ireland continues to draw Irish emigrants there. However, the cost of emigrating could burn a deep hole in your pockets. CANADA Home to the Rockies, the grizzly bear and the awkward moose, anyone emigrating to Canada certainly won't be hungry for the great outdoors -- but you could need almost €18,000 to enter the countr

All set for an April Fool's Budget, but the joke is on us... IT'S a bit like throwing water into a bucket of sand. No matter how many fistfuls of euros the Government fling into the financial black hole, it just keeps on getting bigger, deeper and darker. No-one was expecting the Exchequer returns for the first two months of this year to make pleasant reading, but the sheer speed at which the country is sliding further into the red is nothing short of hair-raising. In the same two months last year, when few people had a clue that the Celtic Tiger had been placed on the endangered species list, the Exchequer posted a Budget deficit of €125m. What a trifle that is, a mere bagatelle compared to frightful figures unleashed yesterday which revealed that the Budget deficit for the first two months of this year stands at €2bn. The economy is staggering all over the place like a drunken sailor, and nobody seems to know how to straighten it out. The Exchequer figures were due to be rele

Record increase in families fighting to save home... REPOSSESSION orders sought by banks and mortgage lenders soared by more than 100pc last year in the wake of the downturn. According to figures complied by the Courts Service, 758 new applications for possession orders were brought to the High Court in 2008 -- compared to 374 the previous year. The increase is the largest ever recorded by the courts and points to aggressive tactics deployed by some lenders to recover their debts. Many of the applications were from subprime lenders, such as Start Mortgages, but there were also from major banks such as AIB and Bank of Ireland. In the past six months of 2008 the High Court received 505 applications -- compared with 253 at the start of the year. However it was the final quarter of last year, when the country was hit by massive job losses, which saw applications gain momentum. Between October and December 294 applications were brought by lenders -- compared to just 96 during the same perio

'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,

Spectre of gloom looms for those who keep their jobs as well as those laid off... GOING, GOING gone. Once these three words were the oft-repeated mantra of Ireland's busy auctioneers; now they form a gloomy synopsis of the state of the Irish jobs market. With no homes going under the hammer, the axe fell on jobs in the construction sector over the course of 2008. A decisive coinciding blow from the global economic crisis saw the reverberations spread through all sectors of the economy. Jobs are now being lost at such a fast rate that an Opposition leader (Labour Party's Eamon Gilmore) can call the soaring unemployment rate a "national crisis" and it doesn't sound like political hyperbole. Having started the year below 5 per cent, the estimated unemployment rate in November was 7.8 per cent. Economists now forecast that the rate will jump to double digits by the end of 2009. Almost 100,000 people joined the Live Register of unemployment benefit claimants in the fir

Ireland: Testing Times... How do we cope with recession? Valerie Shanley hears from leading experts and thinkers... In with the old, out with the new. But if we started 2008 as slightly mangy Celtic Tigers, who are we now as we venture a toe into 2009? The collapse in our economy has left an entire section of society feeling much poorer – especially those with big houses and share portfolios in Irish banks. Gone are the days when estate agents could tell you that the first thing new owners of a house should do on moving in was to rip out the designer kitchen the previous owners had only recently installed and replace it with another. Because gone are many of those estate agents. If the masters of no universe are having to re-evaluate the way they look at themselves, what about the rest of us? Even though most people were observers, as opposed to participants, in the ostentatious wealth of 'the boom', there was a positive, knock-on effect in confidence generally. Looking around,

We must demand greater accountability from politicians, regulators and business... PICTURE THE scene: greedy executives, shady solicitors, lying politicians, child- abusing priests, cover-ups, fraud and lots of brown envelopes. It sounds like an episode of US cops and corruption show The Wire, but it's actually the horrifying reality show known as Noughties Ireland . The first series of Noughties Ireland in 2007 delivered scheming property developers and government officials happy to look the other way . Series two featured a shamed taoiseach, several dodgy solicitors, the Fás scandal and questionable banking practices. This year's series sees paedophile priests and bishops who damn children to a lifelong personal hell. Fraud is also likely to make an appearance this year. Paddy Power is taking bets on which Irish sector will be charged with the biggest fraud in 2009. The odds favour banking, property and the legal sector , with telecoms and State/semi-State bodies next in line

It's less middle of the road, more end of the road as the reality of the recession sets in with mid-income families who'd become used to mochas, Maseratis and Manolo Blahniks, writes Justine McCarthy You've probably heard most of the blood-curdling stories by now. There's that one about the corporate wide boys dumping their flash unpaid-for cars in the airport car park before hopping on the emigrant Airbus. And the one about crèches haemorrhaging toddlers as their highflying parents stagger to the dole office clutching their P45s. Or the one about builders offering free Lamborghinis and villas in the sun in a last-chance-saloon effort to flog three-bed new-builds in commuter-land. Or the mother 'n' father of all the doomsday tales: the one about the once mega-rich tycoon spending his last million hiring bodyguards to protect him from his angry creditors. You've probably heard them, and thought: Sure, and pigs fly. Perhaps it comes from a defiant optimism ro

25pc afraid of losing jobs as confidence hits a record low... MORE than a quarter of workers fear that they are about to lose their jobs, while one in five thinks their personal financial circumstances will worsen in the next year. But the number of people who fear redundancy in the private sector is likely to be even higher as the survey did not distinguish between public and private sector workers. The Ipsos Mori poll, seen exclusively by the Irish Independent, reveals that consumers' confidence in their personal finances is at its lowest level since the survey was first conducted in 1999. Recessionary times are striking fear into workers with more than a quarter of workers afraid that they are about to lose their jobs. Younger people are more insecure about their jobs than older workers, the survey conducted among 1,500 people between July and September shows. More than a third of those aged between 16 and 24 are concerned about the possibility of being made redundant. Almost th

Irish use of resources not sustainable, says Gormley... IRISH PEOPLE are "living beyond our environmental means" and are using too much of the planet's resources, Minister for the Environment John Gormley will tell a sustainable development conference today. Mr Gormley was referring to a recent report commissioned by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) which found that if everyone in the world consumed as much as an Irish person, three planets would be needed to sustain the world's population. The report also found that meeting policy targets in relation to the reduction of the State's "ecological footprint" would not be enough to live within the capacity of global resources. Speaking ahead of his address to the annual conference in Dublin today of Comhar, the sustainable development council, Mr Gormley said Ireland must rein in its consumption of resources. " We are living beyond our environmental means. If everybody in the world consumed as

Shit happens, but why Brian? Brian Cowen seems to have decided to take refuge in a variation on what is known in political speak as the Bart Simpson defence. And no, relax, he's not suggesting we eat his shorts, more the other Bartism: "I didn't do it, nobody saw me do it, you can't prove anything.'' Cowen's version was: "There's no crisis, OK maybe there is a crisis but it's not my fault, why can't you people get it through your thick skulls that there is a crisis." Back at the start of the summer, when even Fine Gael knew there was something wrong, Cowen was telling us that the fundamentals were sound. Having announced a saving of half a billion, which was going to solve all our problems, Cowen and his whole Government then disappeared for the whole summer as the world plunged into crisis. Then they all reappeared after their long break to concede that, all things taken into account and having examined the figures, there might be a p