Signs of life or April Fool? The latest Daft Report
Buyer power: Latest rent figures suggest review of rent supplement will have an impact
Where is there oversupply in the Irish rental market? And where might there be shortgages? This post reviews the figures from the latest Daft.ie Rental Report, whose commentary is given by Minister Joan Burton. The headline figures suggest stability in rents, but that hides very different trends between the major urban markets, Dublin and Cork in particular, and the smaller rental markets. A comparison of supply and demand across the country suggests that rents should be falling faster in many parts of the country – turning the focus back on to rent supplement levels. Read more
Time to face reality, as rents start to rise for family homes
The latest Daft.ie Rental Report, released today, found that rents nationally rose in the third quarter, for the first time since early 2008. The urban-rural difference in trends persists, though. This post looks at trends by bedroom number, finding rising rents for family homes in most urban segments. A persistence in thinking about one national property market, however, will prevent the response required to keep an adequate supply of competitively priced accommodation. Read more
Irish house prices: calling the bottom and worrying about the next bubble
The latest Daft Report was released this week and shows asking prices up to 55% below their peak. This post uses the latest figures to estimate when property prices in Ireland will bottom out. It outlines two scenarios, one where the country returns to normal lending conditions, and one where it does not and risks another boom-bust cycle. With the correct steps by the Government, property prices could stabilise in early 2013. Read more
Will the surge of properties on to the market push rents down?
The latest Daft.ie Rental Report shows that rents nationwide have been largely stable over the past twelve months. This post looks behind these top level figures and explores two issues in particular. The first is the stock available to rent in the cities across Ireland, and whether this will push rents down in coming months. The second is how far the rent-house price relationship has adjusted back to normality in the past four years… and how much more of an adjustment is needed. Read more
Are we nearly there yet? Finding the new floor for property prices
With the release of the latest Daft.ie House Price Report showing the average house price below €200,000 for the first time in a decade, this post examines three different ways of calculating what house prices in Ireland “should” be. The most straightforward way is to adjust house prices for inflation, but this may not reflect the transformation of the Irish economy since the mid-1990s. Two other methods – comparing to incomes and to rents – both suggest that the average house price should be about €150,000, a fall of 60% from the peak. If this is true, prices may bottom out in Leinster as early as next year and elsewhere by 2014. Read more
Rents on the rise in the cities – a bad signal but a good sign?
This post reviews the findings of the latest Daft.ie Rental Report. Rents rose slightly in the first few months of 2011, and the year-on-year change in rents in some parts of Dublin and in Cork city is positive time for the first time since 2008. This post explains how this is both a bad signal but a good sign, and what it tells us about the underlying economy. Read more
An all-island property slump? Half of property listings live to see their first birthday
Today sees the launch of the latest Daft.ie House Price Report, which finds that asking prices fell again in the first three months of 2011, but by one of the smallest percentages since 2008. This post outlines some key findings of the report and then explores a measure of the speed with which properties sell across Dublin, the rest of the Republic and also Northern Ireland. Read more
Scarcity drives year-on-year rents up for the first time since 2007
The Daft.ie Report reviewing the rental market in 2010 was released this week. This post outlines its major findings – including that rents are now at 1998 levels but are rising in the cities. It looks in detail at oversupply on the rental market, and how it has disappeared in some regions, in particular Dublin. It also finds that there is no systematic difference between trends in the 1-2 bed segment and in the 3-4 bed segment. Read more