Daft Property - Irish Property News

Bertie bags $40,000 - for tips on Celtic Tiger 'success'... FORMER Taoiseach Bertie Ahern is charging American companies a fortune to present a new lecture -- about how he transformed our economy in the Celtic Tiger boom. The man targeted by many as the architect of our crippling recession, is charging more than $40,000 (€27,554) a time for speaking engagements with the elite Washington Speakers Bureau. During the lecture, Mr Ahern offers tips to bosses of leading firms on how to be competitive. The former Fianna Fail leader has been employed for a number of years as one of the highest-paid speakers with the bureau -- whose motto is 'Connecting you with the world's greatest minds' . In his latest lecture -- entitled 'Prime Minister as CEO' -- he tells listeners to adopt Ireland's Celtic Tiger as a model of economic growth. Last night it was described as "bewildering". Bosses of the bureau refused to reveal the number of times Mr A...

With an oversupply of properties and tumbling prices, renting seems the way to go... IN THE Chinese calendar, 2009 is the year of the ox, but in Ireland it looks set to be the year of the renter. Economists are predicting that rents will drop by at least 10 per cent in the year ahead, compounding similar falls in 2008. Tenants are waking up to the fact that it’s a buyers’ market and negotiating lower rents and better conditions (see panel). In many cases, they are renting properties that they could never afford to buy. Large, luxurious homes are coming on to the rental market for the first time. Meanwhile, new standards are coming into force next month which will improve the quality of existing rental accommodation. Forget about grotty bedsits, coin-operated electricity meters and rent hikes – tenant power is in the ascendant. The downward pressure on rents has been caused primarily by a glut of properties flooding the market. Developers, buy-to-let investors and those trading up who f...