Daft Property - Irish Property News

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...

More price cuts as season starts... There will be a drop in the supply of houses new to the market in 2009, but sellers are still having to cut prices - again... THE DUBLIN property market has opened with price cuts at all levels of the market, as sellers digest news of the country's deteriorating finances and economists' gloomy forecasts. Estate agents are taking a fresh look at their stock and advising sellers to reconsider prices. The reassessment is going on at all levels of the market, according to Peter Kenny of Colliers, where notable price cuts include €130,000 off a three-bedroom penthouse in a development at Old Conna, Riverdale, on Dargle Road, Bray, Co Wicklow. The 130sq m (1,400 sq ft) apartment with river views has has been reduced from €560,000 to €430,000. Colliers has also dropped the price of a four-bedroom semi at Burnaby Mill in Greystones from €720,000 to €580,000 in an effort to attract buyers, while in Dún Laoghaire, Gunne has just dropped the price of an...

Can we remake Ireland's future? The year ended with the certainty that the global crisis is not a short-term glitch, and that Ireland is suffering more than most. Will 2009 bring the shift in Irish political culture needed to bring us back from the brink? LATE LAST YEAR, when the rock band Tindersticks played in Dublin, they finished their set with The Not Knowing , a haunting ballad of love and denial. The words seemed especially apt and particularly poignant: "The not knowing is easy/ The suspecting, that's okay/ Just don't tell me for certain/ That our love has gone away." Replace "love" with "boom" and the sad song would be a three-hankie job. This time last year, the not knowing still came easy and even the strong suspicion that the good times were definitively over could be drowned in denial, excess or the mellow lullabies of "soft landings". Now we know for certain, and if there is to be comfort in 2009, we have to find it in t...

A 50pc descent from peak to trough... IF there is one economic certainty for 2009 it is that Irish house prices will continue to fall just as the economy accelerates in reverse. Even the most bullish of commentators or indeed vested interests have pencilled in 2010 as the earliest date for a turnaround. According to the ESRI, which is now firmly in the bear's camp, prices are likely to end 2009 at the same level as the last half of 2003. This means anyone who bought from 2004 on is very likely to have a home worth less than they paid for it. With the economy set to decline by 5 per cent or more and employment to fall by as many as 140,000 jobs resulting in double digit unemployment figures, people will simply hold off on most purchases. According to Jim Power, chief economist at Friends First this deterioration in the labour market with massive job losses and increased job uncertainty as well as downward pressure on wages will keep sentiment pretty negative. The result, he says, wi...

IT’S 3 a.m. at Doheny & Nesbitt, a favorite watering hole of Dublin’s political and business elite, and the property tycoon Sean Dunne stoops to retrieve a penny from the pub’s grimy floor. One would think that Mr. Dunne, Ireland’s best-known building developer, would be in bed at this hour. It’s a weeknight, after all, and he has meetings that begin before first light. What’s more, the Irish economy, pummeled by the most severe housing bust in Europe, has collapsed. And the gossip around town is that Mr. Dunne, whose brazen deal-making and Donald Trump-like lifestyle epitomized the country’s euphoric boom, might be going bankrupt. But, no matter, a penny is a penny. “I am never, never too proud to pick a penny up from the floor,” Mr. Dunne said. He is on perhaps his fifth pint of Guinness, capping a rollicking night of Champagne cocktails, followed by a wine-soaked dinner — yet his thick brogue is clear of even the faintest slurring. “I grew up with nothing and I know the value of...

New rules may force 'firesale' of 70,000 houses... BUILDERS could be forced to dramatically slash the prices of more than 70,000 new houses that are now lying empty across the country, a leading construction advisor has warned. In a damning new analysis -- obtained by the Irish Independent -- it is claimed that developers will have to offload the massive volume of vacant homes in a 'firesale' before the Government's new energy guidelines come into effect on July 1. The new study found the number of new homes lying empty in 'ghost' estates is far larger than was previously estimated. The findings reveal there are at least 100,000 'surplus' homes -- far higher than the 30,000 estimated by construction industry chiefs and estate agents. According to the analysis, carried out by Tony O'Brien, head of business consulting for accountancy firm Grant Thornton, market conditions suggest some 30,000 of these will be sold in the current economic climate. Bu...

'No Irish need apply' - Polish builders get their own back... 'NO Irish need apply' - the signs are already going up on building sites abroad in a throwback to the grim days of the the last century. But this time they are starting to appear in Poland as that country takes its revenge for the way in which some unscrupulous Irish contractors treated their countrymen during the years of the Celtic Tiger. Trade union official Michael Kilcoyne - also president of the Consumers Association of Ireland - said it had recently been brought to his attention that the 'No Irish' signs had appeared on a couple of Polish building sites where workers were being sought. Mr Kilcoyne said: "The reality is that our international reputation as employers has been sullied. Many foreign people who have worked here, especially during our boom years, have had bad experiences. "The evidence of this is in the number of cases taken before the Labour Relations Commission over the l...