Daft Property - Irish Property News

EU loan is no bailout, it's financial bullying. Should we be taking our case on the EC's extortionate profit margin to the Court of Justice... SOME members of the European Council are exploiting our crisis in order to profit at our expense. If the interest rates on the EU loans are not reduced, the Irish public will suffer unnecessarily while our European partners profit from these loans. Last January, the European Financial Stabilisation Mechanism charged Ireland an interest rate of 5.51 per cent for money that it borrowed at 2.59 per cent. A month later, the European Financial Stabilisation Fund charged Ireland an interest rate of 5.9 per cent for money that it borrowed at 2.89 per cent. On this basis, the EFSF earns a profit margin of 3.01 per cent and the EFSM earns a profit margin of 2.93 per cent. These margins are draconian. The majority of the interest that Ireland pays is not used to pay for the EU's borrowing costs. It is excessive profit for the countries

Market hasn't hit bottom despite 40pc drop in four years, say economists... HOUSE prices are likely to continue to fall for another two years, analysts predicted yesterday. It came as a new, official index of residential property prices from the Central Statistics Office showed a 12pc fall in the past year. It also found that the pace of decrease has picked up in the past two months Prices are down 40pc from their peak level in 2007. Dublin has suffered much higher losses in value, with the crash cutting prices almost in half. In the rest of the country they are down by a third. The fall of 47pc in the capital contrasts with a plunge of 35pc elsewhere. Sharp drops in prices were recorded in February and March. The fall of 1.7pc in each month was the highest since July 2009. However, these decreases mainly reflect sales agreed last November when the €85bn IMF/EU bailout was agreed. The fact that the country was being bailed out meant that the only property transacti

Apartments built on banks of famed river lie in ruin... AN apartment block built on the banks of a famed river at the height of the Celtic Tiger frenzy, has fallen into a state of dangerous neglect. Locals in the village of Ballisodare, Co Sligo, are demanding action to make safe the derelict building that stands in the heart of the village. They say it's a tragic relic of the building boom and is a haunt for late night drinking and anti-social behaviour. The Mill Apartments, a colossal 74-unit complex on the site of an old mill, was developed by Michael Fitzgerald Construction Ltd, at an estimated cost of €12m and promoted as "a property that simply has it all". Close-by is the location on the banks of the Owenmore River where poet WB Yeats is widely believed to have penned 'The Sally Gardens'. When the state-of-the-art apartments first came on the market in 2006, two-bedroom units were selling from €320,000. But before most were even occupied, tena

Distressed property auction promises to offload €20m in stock at '80s prices... ANOTHER distressed property sale will take place next month with almost €20m worth of housing stock on offer. The sale -- to be held in Cork on June 24 -- features houses from across Munster, some at discounts of up to 60pc, and is expected to emulate the success of the first distressed property disposal in Dublin. Organising auctioneer Noel Forde said the sale represents a "once in a lifetime chance" to obtain properties at 1980s prices. The auction follows the success of a discounted prop-erty sale in Dublin last month which saw deals worth €14.8m struck in just six hours. Mr Forde, of GMAC Properties in Castletownbere in west Cork, said he expects similar levels of interest. "There is money out there and people are simply waiting for the right time to buy and the right property to invest in," he said. "There was nothing moving in the property market for us and

Full employment to bust in four years... IT took just four years for the country to go from full employment to a situation where one-in-seven people is out of work. As recently as 2007 unemployment stood at just 4.6pc -- less than one in 20 of the workforce. That has trebled to 14.6pc today. It may come as a shock to Celtic Tiger cubs, but you only have to go back to 1994 to find a similar proportion of people out of work. Back then, the unemployment rate had been bobbing around 14pc for over a decade -- down only slightly from its peak of 17pc in the mid-1980s. The difference between then and now is that a staggering 440,000 people are signing on for the dole today. Even at its worst in 1993 there were fewer than 300,000 people on the Live Register. Then came the boom and for over a decade Ireland became a Mecca for jobseekers, both international workers and its own returning emigrants who pushed the workforce to a once unthinkable 2.1 million people. Dole queues fell to

Drugs, drink and the stench of urine are alive, alive oh... Queen Elizabeth and Barack Obama are on their way to Dublin, but we won't be be in a hurry to show them sections of the city centre where drug dealers, drunks and beggars rule the roost... It is a gloriously sunny May morning in Dublin and there's considerable drama happening outside Ireland's national theatre, The Abbey. A crowd of vagrants -- their faces ravaged by years of drug addiction -- roar obscenities at each other. They seem to be arguing over the final dregs of cider in a large plastic bottle. One of them -- a woman who looks like she's in her 40s but is probably much younger -- swings a punch at an especially emaciated man and keels over in the effort. The commotion lasts for five minutes until they split into two groups -- the smaller bunch making their way unsteadily towards Eden Quay, the other along Marlborough Street in a northbound direction. They leave behind a trail of litter -- includ

'Ireland is b***ixed' says hairdresser to the stars Marshall as iconic salon shuts... Iconic Dublin hair stylist David Marshall, has shut his flagship salon on Dawson Street after 30 years. The salon, which opened in 1981, closed for business after struggling with high overheads. Mr Marshall blamed the salon's closure on the pressures of high rents and overheads at a time when business was retracting. "It's an awful lot of pressure on small businesses," he said. "You are going to see a lot more closures over the next couple of years." Mr Marshall, one of Ireland's most famous stylists, is now focussing on the David Marshall Academy and School, where he will still be on hand to tend the locks of his long-standing clients. He continued: "It's a sad day but the whole country is b***ixed," he said. "In my mind there is no give for small businesses anymore." He said there will be some job "casualties" wh