Daft Property - Irish Property News

Property auction disaster shows prices still falling... IRELAND'S first discounted property auction proved a disaster yesterday, with just two of the 63 properties on offer being sold. Only two separate plots of land sold for a total of €95,000 at the auction in a Cork hotel, despite the fact that over €10m worth of houses and properties were on offer. Those same properties were worth almost €30m just five years ago. But yesterday potential bidders felt the prices were still too high. Analysts grimly warned last night that it was proof the Irish market had still to reach rock bottom -- with potential buyers convinced that prices will fall back further. Yesterday's auction was the first to involve discounted Irish properties. These are cut-price holdings being sold by private owners or developers eager to dispose of assets. Ireland's first distressed-property auction took place in Dublin last April when €14.8m worth of deals were struck. Distressed property invol

Half of us now in negative equity misery... HUNDREDS of thousands of Irish homeowners could face negative equity as early as June. A report from NCB stockbrokers has outlined that as many as 45pc of householders could owe more on their mortgage than their house is worth. NCB economist Brian Devine says that house prices, as officially measured, are still overvalued. "Our estimate for Ireland suggests the number of homes in negative equity ranges between 29pc and 46pc depending on the price decline assumed," Mr Devine outlined. NCB believes prices are already 35pc below their peak, meaning close to one in three homeowners are already in negative equity. "There is little reason to believe that house prices will not continue to fall as future employment prospects remain bleak, further tax hikes are in the pipeline, confidence remains low, emigration is likely and there remains a large supply of properties for sale," the NCB report claimed. "Affordability may have

Don't blame us for 170,000 house surplus, say builders... BUILDERS yesterday denied that too many houses went up at the height of the boom -- insisting they built to the demand that existed. Hubert Fitzpatrick, director of housing and planning services at the Construction Industry Federation (CIF), made the comments after a new report claimed 170,000 more houses were built than were needed during the property bubble. The organisation is now calling on the Government to conduct a national audit to provide "accurate" data on the number of empty homes. It argues that a definitive account of the situation has not been presented -- because reports probing the issue are measuring housing stock in different ways. The latest report into housing published yesterday by University College Dublin (UCD) and Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT) found a total of 345,000 homes -- or 17pc of all housing -- were currently lying empty. It said that even without considering holiday homes and

That 40% drop - it's already happened... Economists have predicted that house prices have to fall by at least 40 per cent from their peak of 2006 but house builders say that’s already a reality... NEW HOMES agents have supported a claim by the Irish Housebuilders’ Association (IHBA) that selling prices for newly built houses and apartments have either bottomed out or are close to that stage in the price cycle. Dominic Doheny, chairman of the IHBA, said earlier this week that prices across the country have dropped by an average of over 40 per cent and that the level of unsold stock was between 35,000 and 40,000. He said that there are 9,000 new homes overhanging the Dublin market – a figure well below other estimates which put unsold properties at 15,000. Ken MacDonald of Hooke MacDonald said yesterday that judging by the magnitude of the price cuts and the increased number of enquiries and viewings in recent months, there was room for a guarded optimism that the market had bottomed

Danger lurks in the ghost estates haunting our towns and villages... Mark Twain once famously said: "Buy land, they're not making it any more." But the mantra in Ireland during the past 10 years could easily have been: "Buy land -- and build on every inch." Across the country, rash zoning decisions in small towns and villages saw housing estates spring up. Ballyforan in Co Roscommon is one village where sales of new homes have stalled, and prices have now been slashed in an attempt to lure buyers. Built in what is essentially a one-street village, the Claremont development is now offering homes as part of the rent-to-buy scheme. Costing from €650 per month, it's the "easy way to owning your dream home" according to the blurb. Another, Pairc Caislean, has hoarding up around an empty site adjacent to some already completed houses. In Roscommon, and other counties such as Cavan, Longford and Leitrim, tax incentives saw scores of developers building la

New-house completions at lowest since 1970s... HOUSE completions are to fall to their lowest level since records began in the 1970s. The number of new homes expected to be finished next year will be 10,000, whereas even during the recession-hit 1980s the lowest number of completions was 15,654 in 1988. A gloomy economic forecast from the Department of the Environment says it will be another two years before we see a return to economic growth. And it says that the estimated 150,000 unsold homes currently on the market will discourage new building activity for the next four years. The Construction Industry Outlook 2009-2011, conducted by DKM Economic Consultants for the department, finds that the current downturn in the industry is the most severe on record and that the number employed in the industry could fall to just 138,000 by the end of the year. This is half the number employed in 2006 at the height of the boom when 267,000 people worked in construction. New figures from the Depart