Daft Property - Irish Property News

We're being seduced by property porn again – will we ever learn? LAST week the "glossy brigade" was out in force. Papers were full of bright, impossibly blue skies, over "imposing" homes many of which "boasted" this feature or that attribute. Yes, the glossy brigade, Ireland's property pornographers, who pedal lifestyle fetishes to the middle classes are back at a newspaper close to you. Amazingly, just six years after a property crash, which destroyed much of the economy, chatter about house prices appears to be back, or at least, out of social quarantine. Any day soon, expect a new TV programme on house hunting, the joys of home makeovers or the allure of trading up. Why do we allow ourselves to be taken in by this nonsense? Every spring since the crash, the estate agents and the property industry have tried to re-launch the property market with puff pieces, hard selling and gimmicks. Yet underneath the hype, the evidence from the hous...

Thousands of 'ghost estate' residents will now fall into tax net... THOUSANDS of homeowners living in unfinished developments will be hit with property tax bills from the summer. People living in estates which were classed as "seriously problematic" just four months ago will be forced to pay the tax after the Department of the Environment decided they did not qualify for a waiver. Last year, some 1,322 housing estates containing 43,000 homes were considered exempt from the household charge because essential works needed to be carried out. The Government has now decided that just 421 estates, with about 5,100 households, will not have to pay the property tax. Housing Minister Jan O'Sullivan defended the move, saying that essential works, including public lighting, water treatment systems, roads and open spaces, had been provided in many estates since last summer. The reduction in those qualifying for a waiver showed that progress was being made in ta...

Homeowners' guide to calculating and paying the new tax... From next week 1.9 million homeowners will start getting letters from the Revenue outlining how they are to pay a new local property tax which is to replace the household charge that was introduced two budgets ago. Property tax? But I paid a fortune in stamp duty when I bought my house at the height of the boom. Surely I can’t owe more money on a property that is now worth half of what I paid for it? Yes you can. The Government, has decided to ignore the massive amounts of money it collected from us in property-related stamp duty over the last decade or so and start on a blank page when it comes to property tax. The good news (for the Government) is that it should raise €500 million a year from the new tax. How much will this one cost me?  Well it depends on where you live, but the good news is that the majority of people will be expected to pay less than €500 a year thanks to the all but total collapse of th...

THE taxman will use GPS-style technology to help work out your property tax bill. Sophisticated aerial mapping will be used to measure a home's proximity to shops, transport links, schools and other amenities that have a bearing on a property's value. A 'deprivation index' will also be used to measure the affluence or poverty of an area, which will also have a bearing on the value and the amount of tax that should be paid. Homeowners will receive letters in the coming weeks telling them how much the Revenue thinks their home is worth and the tax band the property falls into. The revelations show the hi-tech lengths the Revenue is going to in order to clamp down on those who knowingly undervalue their home for the new charge. It is employing a sophisticated database which calculates a property's location in relation to facilities that increase its value. Aerial maps and GPS-style systems will measure "the distance from each property to a series of...

Fall in house prices second-highest in EU... Irish house prices fell at the second-fastest rate in the European Union last year and at a rate that was almost five times faster than the EU average, according to data compiled by academics based at the National University of Ireland in Maynooth (NUIM). The figures published by the university’s All-Island Research Observatory show that Irish property prices are now nearly 30 per cent below a standardised average dating back to the middle of 2010. They indicate that the Republic has had the worst-performing property market in the EU over the last six years , although markets in Spain and Bulgaria have performed almost as badly in recent years. The data does contain some glimmers of hope that a recovery may be in sight or at least that the worst of the price falls are over. The figures, compiled from Eurostat price surveys, show the Republic reporting the third-highest quarterly property increases in the third quarter of last ye...

Revealed: huge inequity in rural/city property tax... Small apartments in capital will be charged more than rural 'mansions' THE gross inequity of Finance Minister Michael Noonan's property tax is today laid bare as it has emerged Dubliners on the lowest rung of the property ladder will pay higher property tax than the owners of large four-bedroom homes across rural Ireland. One-bed apartment owners in the golden triangle of south county Dublin will be forced to pay on average €315 in property tax, higher or equal than that paid by the owners of large detached houses in 19 other counties outside the capital, a Sunday Independent national property survey published today reveals. The figures have reignited angry calls this weekend from within Fine Gael to have the terms and scope of the property tax amended in the Finance Bill to address the "injustice inflicted on the people of Dublin". Dublin South TD Olivia Mitchell said: "What is happening is th...

How this crippling new homes levy will hit Dubliners 3 times as hard... DUBLINERS face having to pay almost three times as much property tax as householders outside the capital. The controversial tax is due to be rolled out across the board this summer at a 0.18pc rate of the value of the property. But the discrepancies between how much householders in the capital will have to pay compared to people living in towns and cities elsewhere suggests the tax may be one of the most divisive ever. Today the Herald highlights the disparity between the charge on homes in Dublin and two medium-sized towns, close to Cork and Galway cities. We have selected three types of houses - a four-bed detached, a three-bed semi-detached and a three-bed terraced - for comparison purposes. The big difference between the houses in each type is their location and price. Unfair Homeowners are due to receive an estimate on their bill from the Revenue in March. They must submit their valuation by Ma...