I return again, like a dog to a buried bone, to the subject of the Grey Party (sorry Green Party). I took the opportunity, recently, of republishing their 2007 manifesto lest it be forgotten, and among its declarations was the Grey Party’s determination to:
‘Ensure the delivery of 10,000 social and affordable housing units a year [...]

Ireland is in the middle of a catastrophized recession. This will come as no surprise to anyone in Ireland, though perhaps it is not known as well internationally as one might think. One of the crucial features of the time leading up to the boom was the activity of the property developers, the ‘risk-taking’ darlings [...]

The latest DAFT report is out covering rents.  I have written the quarterly commentary which can be read here (and thanks to Ronan Lyons for inviting me to write the commentary).  The headline news is that rents have ’stabilised’ and have started to rise - though whether this presages a long-term upward trend remains to [...]

Writing in today’s Irish Times Fintan O’Toole says that the pricing mechanism envisaged in the NAMA bill will have the effect of producing another property bubble – it will rely on the price of housing reaching 2002-2003 levels, which was still many times higher than the majority of workers’ wages.

“An aristocracy in a republic is like a chicken whose head has been cut off; it may run about in a lively way, but in fact it is dead.”
Nancy Mitford

Amidst the collapse of the Irish economy, the inhabitants of a rural hinterland begin to feel the touch of the dead hand of the housing market.
This [...]