Daft Property - Irish Property News

We're paying high price for blind eyes and denial... No event in the past 40 years, apart from the Arms Crisis of 1970, has been shrouded in as much state secrecy as the bank guarantee scheme introduced on the night of September 28, 2008. While everyone knows the outcome of the various meetings -- €485bn of liabilities were ultimately guaranteed -- only a small circle knows precisely what happened during the shuttle diplomacy between the banks and Brian Cowen's Government that night. Two books have been written, several newspaper accounts have been published and one or two of the participants have even spoken briefly about that fateful evening. But detailed, minuted information about the key decisions and key moments leading up to the guarantee has never been released. In fact a slew of Freedom of Information requests seeking these details has been flatly rejected, with the Department of Finance using highly charged language to explain why the public and the media cannot see su

Property tax plan to help fill '€3.5bn hole'... IMF urges help on mortgages and new tax on bank salaries: THE Government is considering a flat-rate property tax as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) warns an extra €3.5bn may be needed to meet budget targets. In a detailed analysis of the Irish economy, the IMF predicted the Government may not enjoy the hoped-for "bounce" from the recession. The Department of Finance believes that forecast is too gloomy. The difference between the two views amounts to 2pc of the country's output (GDP) and that comes to almost €3.5bn over the next five years. However, government officials agreed that a property tax would be a good way to make the public finances more stable. That is revealed in a new report from the Washington-based fund. Despite claims that a property tax is "off the agenda" in the next two Budgets, the Government told the IMF a flat-rate tax on property was under consideration "in the transition&

5,000 will leave each month over job crisis... 120,000 to emigrate by end of next year, ESRI predicts: MORE than 120,000 people -- or 5,000 a month -- will emigrate by the end of next year to escape unemployment at home, the State's economic think tank warns in its latest report. That means the equivalent population of Cork city will leave over the next 18 months. The figure is 20,000 more than the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) estimated in its last report, just three months ago. Jean Goggin, a co-author of the report, said: "It's quite significant -- we expect 70,000 to leave in 2010 and a further 50,000 in 2011." Unlike last year, most of these emigrants will be Irish, the figures suggest. Many foreign workers -- mostly in construction and retailing -- whose jobs disappeared have already left the country. "In the two years 2008 and 2009, the number of non-nationals employed in Ireland fell by 87,500," the report says. "The biggest adju

House prices will keep falling this year despite growth... HOUSE prices will continue to fall this year despite a return to economic growth, the Government has warned. And a report from the Department of the Environment warns that almost 200,000 homeowners are facing negative equity by the end of the year -- where one-in-four mortgage holders will be forced to pay off loans that exceed the value of their homes. The Housing Market Overview 2009 also says price recovery will take longer outside major urban centres, and that the downturn may be "longer or more severe" than expected . This means that demolition could be the only option for the thousands of housing units due to come under the control of NAMA because they are unlikely to ever sell. Unsold Officials from the department have begun a count of the number of unsold housing units across the country, with some estimates saying up to 300,000 may be empty. "The International Monetary Fund has analysed house-price cycle

While the rest of us work, TDs get three months off... THERE are ordinary people and then there are the people in the Dail. Dr James Reilly made the distinction while arguing against a three-month summer recess. Ordinary people, he said, could not fathom how the Government could take a three-month holiday in the middle of the biggest economic crisis in the history of the State. The Fine Gael deputy leader was doing his best to distance himself and his party from the perception that they and all the other extraordinary people in the Dail exist in some sort of parallel universe , untroubled by reality . However, the Opposition's attempts to absolve themselves by objecting to the length of the recess rang a little hollowly. In the end, they shrugged and went off on holiday anyway. Would it be too cynical to suggest that it doesn't matter a curse that the Dail will be inactive for three months due to its general ineffectiveness? When we are told that the Dail has decided this or th

Gap in asking/selling prices of 'up to 20%'... THE gap between asking prices and selling prices can be as high as 20 per cent says economist Paul Murgatroyd. There is no way for the public to accurately determine selling prices in the absence of a national price database linked to the Land Registry, but Murgatroyd, who analysed MyHome.ie’s price survey published this week, says his view is that the figure is “anywhere between zero and 20 per cent below asking price, depending on the seller, the buyer and the property”. Myhome.ie’s figures indicated that asking prices have fallen in Dublin by 33 per cent since the peak of the property boom at the end of 2006. This followed a price index by Sherry FitzGerald saying that selling prices have plummeted by nearly 50 per cent in Dublin since the peak. Vendors and buyers are being left to figure out current property values for themselves by piecing together information from the few indices available: these include ESRI figures based on

NAMA is now the biggest danger to property prices... If one is to take NAMA planners at their word , a wave of commercial property and development land is set to be unleashed into the Irish market, presumably driving up supply and hammering prices downward . The original idea of NAMA, that it could hoard properties in ways not open to the banks, seems to be subtly changing. Now the agency is talking about developers rapidly reducing their debts via sales of assets and in less than three years. The obvious question arises, who is going to buy all the land banks that are going to be unleashed and what will the unleashing do to prices? One view is -- who cares if prices plunge downward, the market needs to find a price floor at some point. That is all very well, but it is the biggest developers who'll be selling first, the smaller ones will come to the fire sale party late and most likely pay the price, literally. There is also the concern about overspill into the residential market,