Tag Archives: Property

Colm tweetz:

Full page ‘Celtic Phoenix’ ad in the Irish Times.

Meanwhile…

‘Is Eoghan Murphy the right person for the job? I don’t know’ (Sunday Independent)

 

First Time Buyer writes;

We woke up to the news today that Dublin property prices are predicted to return to pre-crisis prices by February 2020 – a mere 2½ years away.

The caveat of course is that this prediction has been made by “experts” Savills, who its fair to say have a bit of a vested interest in the property game.

Nevertheless you have to ask yourself, how did a country with the worst housing-market crash in the world return to such a place.

Fine Gael wisely advised us ‘to make sure that we don’t repeat the mistakes of the past’ and promised to “prevent that boom and bust cycle that bedevilled us for so many years”.

They told us they were different from Fianna Fail and that “there will be no return to the past where tax incentives for developers drove supply.”

The problem though is that rather than give tax breaks to developers to BUILD, they gave tax breaks to investors to BUY; 7 Year capital gains tax exemptions, introducing tax-free REITs, encouraging the use of tax free SPVs, QIAIFS and ICAVs.

OK but all that was done to ‘kick start’ the property market and the government have learned their lesson, right?

Wrong.

Successful lobbying by interest groups such as the Residential Landlords’ Association created the myth that landlords were leaving the market due to the the ‘stringent costs’ of running a rental property. Landlords it seems, are also allergic to paying taxes.

The government, believing the hype, immediately increased tax relief on mortgage interest meaning landlords could now deduct 80 per cent of the interest paid on borrowings on a rental property up from 75 per cent previously, with “full interest deductibility” to be restored for landlords by 2021.

So what can we expect in Budget 2018?

The Department of Finance recently held a consultation on the “tax and fiscal treatment of landlords” and our new Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government, Eoghan Murphy has publicly stated that he thinks we need to “look at new measures to support and/or encourage landlords”.

Lessons learned? I don’t think so.

Property prices on track to surpass Celtic Tiger highs by 2020 (Irish Times)

Rollingnews

Magdalene

Further to the Religious Sisters of Charity getting ‘sole ownership’ of the new National Maternity Hospital.

And the online petition, against the move, that has gained more than 75,000 names…

And the Sisters of Charity basing their decision not to pay redress to the Magdalene survivors based on the findings of the McAleese Report…

Readers may wish to recall the following reported by Conor Ryan and Clare O”Sullivan, in the Irish Examiner, back in February 2013…

The Sisters of Charity made €63m in sell-offs during the boom of which €45m came from the 2001 deal for land around its former laundry in Donnybrook, Dublin.

Last year, the Religious Sisters of Charity, who amassed a €233m property portfolio, said they could not afford to release €3m it promised to put into a trust fund for the victims of institutional child abuse.

The order blamed the decision to reduce its cash offer by 60% on the poor property market.

In 2009, when they supplied details of their assets to the Government, it had financial interests of €33m and sold €63m of property in 10 years. The order said it needed to set aside €38.6m to care for its 264 sisters.

Substantial assets, but no more cash for redress (Irish Examiner, February 2013)

Pic: Gloucester Street Magdalenes via Limerick Museum

90344639

First Time Buyer writes:

Are developers our equivalent to [oil producer cartel] OPEC, hoarding land and keeping output to a minimum in order to drive up prices and their profits?

They are holding out in the hope that the next Government will reduce taxes and levies or put pressure on the Central Bank to relax its mortgage lending rules.

The result is that buyers are being forced to seek housing beyond the city and reviving the uunsustainable boom-era practice of long-distance commuting.

The evidence; asking prices are dropping in Dublin but increasing in the rest of the country.

Builders hoarding land to fuel profit (Independent.ie)

Property trends may lead to ‘unsustainable’ commutes – ESRI (Irish Times)

Rollingnews