Daft Property - Irish Property News

Taxpayers are forking out more than €1 million per year on bills such as electricity, gas, security and insurance to keep the lights on at the unfinished €170 million Kilternan Hotel and Country Club in Co Dublin. Irish Nationwide, under former chief executive Michael Fingleton, lent publican Hugh O’Regan €170 million to develop the hotel, but he ran out of money before it was finished. The project went into receivership in 2009. The receiver’s reports show that, over a 12-month period, the unfinished and empty hotel cost €270,000 to insure, €80,000 in ESB bills, €85,000 in gas bills to heat and €155,000 on security. There was also €200,000 spent on consultants, a further €110,000 on legal fees and €71,000 in receiver fees. The company filings show that the firm behind the ill-fated development received more than €1 million from the state-owned Irish Nationwide during the period to meet these ongoing costs. Its sole revenue is €30,000 in rental income. The receiver to Dashaven ...

Prices could fall by a further 15% if rate of decline continues into next year... ANALYSIS: Oversupply, the lack of mortgage financing and the cost of borrowing are all playing a part as property prices continue to decline THE GOOD news on the property market: July’s monthly fall in homes prices was the second smallest this year. The bad news: a single month is not enough to suggest that the deteriorating trend over the course of 2011 has been arrested. The average monthly fall in prices over the first seven months of this year was 1.4 per cent. The average of the 12 months of 2010 was 0.9 per cent. The accelerating underlying rate of price declines up to the middle of this year is cause for concern. And delving deeper into yesterday’s figures gives no reason to believe any segment of the market has been immune. The chart shows declines in prices from January to July ranged from 6-11 per cent. That has added to the already massive declines registered among every market segmen...

Mortgage rescue deal could cost you up to €50,000... But it is still only option for thousands. STRUGGLING homeowners who make deals with lenders to reduce their mortgage payments face paying tens of thousands of euro in extra interest charges. New figures show that almost 70,000 people have now restructured their mortgages -- mostly by extending the repayment period or switching to 'interest only' payments. The Irish Independent can reveal that those with a typical €200,000 home loan who extend their mortgage term by just five years face paying €34,000 more in interest charges. And borrowers could end up paying more than €50,000 in extra interest for the same €200,000 mortgage. The startling figures have been produced by personal finance expert Brendan Burgess. They reveal the huge long-term costs for families seeking to ease the burden. But the Central Bank, which has been leading the way on policies to ease the mortgage crisis, admitted it had "no figures...

Derelict properties add to Dublin's poor litter rating... A POOR showing for Dublin city has spoiled the latest anti-litter league which shows the best State-wide results since 2002. According to the survey, commissioned by Irish Business Against Litter, much of the capital is “as littered as it has been in many years”. While the State generally achieved the highest level of cleanliness since monitoring by the business group began a decade ago, “derelict and vacant” properties contributed to the capital’s poor showing. Parts of Cork also fared badly in the survey, with the Knocknaheeny area of the city being placed joint bottom of the league with Dublin’s north inner city. The survey named individual stores across the State where it said there was excessive litter. These included Tesco in New Ross and Mallow, and McDonald’s, KFC and Pizza Hut in Sligo. Several public buildings were also heavily littered, including Galway’s Merlin Park Hospital. Sweet wrappers were the m...

They presided over the crash -- but no one was ever fired. An "endemic culture of rewarding failure" in Ireland has meant that not one person in the Department of Finance, the Central Bank or the Financial Regulator's office has been sacked for their role in the worst financial and economic crisis in history. While their former political masters in Fianna Fail were slaughtered at the polls in February, it has been confirmed to this newspaper this weekend that not a single official or adviser was laid off for their failure either to adequately prepare for the crash, or for their failure to deal swiftly with it when it happened. "Nobody in the Department of Finance has been fired since January 2008," a spokeswoman told the Sunday Independent. Friends First chief economist Jim Power said that while many of those who were in key positions during the crash have since moved on or retired, their departure has come at a significant cost to the taxpayer. "...

Morgan Kelly predicts further unforseen losses for banks... Kelly warns billions owed by small number of big developers UCD economist Morgan Kelly has predicted that bad debts of a small number of wealthy buy-to-let property investors could lead to previously unforeseen losses for the banks. Professor Kelly claims this group could cause major problems, even if the overall number of people not repaying home loans does not rise drastically. However, Prof Kelly, who is renowned for his doom-laden analysis of the housing market, admitted he had no idea how big the resulting losses could be if these 'super-investors' cannot repay their loans. Prof Kelly, who forecast the original property bust, says in a new academic paper that many wealthy buy-to-let property investors have multiple loans and if they get into trouble that losses will be magnified. In the paper, published on the UCD website, the economist said there could be as few as 2,000 mortgages of more than €1m tak...

Government won't write off struggling homeowners' debt... THE Government is not considering a 'debt-forgiveness' scheme to write off billions of mortgage debt for struggling homeowners, Tanaiste Eamon Gilmore confirmed yesterday. The comments came as public demand grows for a mass mortgage write-off. One homeowners' group is claiming 60,000 people face losing their homes unless a solution to the mortgage crisis is found. The clamour follows last week's claim by renowned economist Morgan Kelly that a debt-forgiveness scheme to rescue those in severe difficulty with their mortgages would cost just €5bn or €6bn. But Mr Gilmore yesterday moved to calm growing expectations that a scheme was imminent, saying the Government was not considering "some kind of blanket write-off or mortgage debt forgiveness, as is being suggested by some". It is understood that many senior cabinet figures, including Finance Minister Michael Noonan and Public Expenditure...