Friday, April 24, 2009
Glenkerrin no longer with Savills
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Quotes of the Week
"Prospective buyers can plan ahead with greater certainty now that the mini-Budget is out of the way. There are more houses with multiple bids on them than before. We have 100 houses under offer at present.The banks are definitely open for business, although the journey from funding to closing is definitely more protracted. Everyone involved -- bankers, solicitors and buyers -- are being much more forensic." (Michael Grehan, Sherry FitzGerald, Irish Independent)
"There have been some sales, but the big problem is getting deals across the line. Plenty of prospective buyers have identified the property they want, driven a tough bargain and want to buy. But we are now finding customers who are distressed about how they are being treated by banks stretching out the loan process continually." (John O'Sullivan, Lisney, Irish Independent)
"There are certainly 'green shoots' showing at a number of housing developments. I'm no longer hearing unending dismal stories about phones not ringing and empty showhouses. Over the last six weeks or so things have improved greatly. It's nothing like it was in the 'good old days' of course, but sales have been steady. Mostly this is first time buyers who recognise that this is the time to buy, and it is unlikely that house prices will drop drastically from here on." (Valerie McGrath, Irish Independent, in an 'article' about Athlumney Wood development in Navan, where she is told "there have been 35 sales over the past few week".)
"The idea of buying a ’starter home’ just for the sake of it so you’d have the equity to move on in a few years is wrong, you should buy so that you can live and settle down in the place you actually want to live in. The sharp falls we are seeing now mean that many people will be able to do this in the future, unfortunately there is a lost generation who won’t." (Karl Deeter, Irish Mortgage Brokers)
"The banking climate for private investors could hardly be worse. For starters, lenders are looking for 20 per cent deposits and, even if they run with the investor, they are charging premiums of at least 1.25 to 1.75 per cent over the home loan rates. To add to the difficulties, many investors continue to be stung by a reluctance of some lenders to pass on the value of interest rate cuts on existing mortgages." (Jack Fagan, The Irish Times)
"Where was the Honest Joe auctioneer when the market began going south, and the loud noises in the business kept proclaiming it was still buoyant, dragging gullible first-time buyers into the web? Auctioneers didn't create the problem, but by God many of them fed off it like vultures, and if some were uncomfortable, they kept their own counsel. They can hardly now claim to be scapegoats. Sorry, Sarah, no concession to feminine fashion in the bunker. Get sized up for the unisex pair." (Michael Clifford in the Sunday Tribune)
MFO website live
I see MFO (McGinley, Farrelly & O'Connor), the new Ranelagh-based agency whose boards seem to be popping up everywhere, have got their website fully up and running, including their own Property Review blog-type section (which I hope they maintain).I just still wonder about the name. MF is one thing. FO is another. Put them together and you're surely asking for trouble! But maybe when you combine them, the rude associations are eradicated. It certainly doesn't seem to have caused this team any harm: we have 9 listings for them in the resale database already and yet they haven't even gone after that market as much as lettings et cetera and are only in business a few wet months.
What a time to start a new agency, but they appear to be made of the right stuff to manage.
One swallow makes a summer in newspaper land
"Q What’s the story with “price on application”? I thought it was a country thing but in looking at various property websites I see that it is now being used in Dublin. What’s the point? If the agent thinks it prompts interest, it doesn’t. It’s a turn off .
A Price on application is indeed a silly extra step, because all it takes is a phone call to find out what the asking price is. It’s not as if there is some difficulty in getting the information. For new homes, it’s generally because an agent doesn’t want to broadcast the price drop due to the sensitivities of owners who bought at the top of the market and is also usually an indication that the developer is willing to do a deal.
For second-hand houses it could be the case that the house has been on the market for so long that there have been multiple price drops, with more expected, so the seller feels “price on application” will save on the embarrassment of advertising each of those price drops.
Agents might also feel that if they could get you on the phone even for the minute it takes to tell you the price, they might be able to lure you into a viewing.
Whatever the reason, it’s difficult to argue with you that it is pointless and only serves to irritate, not intrigue, prospective buyers."
It is an interesting niche topic for a few property business types, but in fact, when you look at the numbers, we have noted only 15 properties out of nearly 3500 since January in Dublin city without an advertised price, and only 12 out of over 1100 in Co Dublin. So I would not label this a "thing" with the sense of "issue of public concern" or "phenomenon" as the letter writer (never named in these Q&As) does and the paper too by addressing it. The newspapers have a habit of taking a notion about something based on one or two instances and turning that into "information". It's not such a problem with minor issues like POAs but when it comes to pricing and agent behaviour it can be a big problem.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Quotes of the Week
"I SEE that Government sources have said that Nama, the National Asset Management Agency, is unlikely to employ any Irish estate agencies for the purposes of valuing the properties it acquires. What an indictment of Irish auctioneers. Is the Government really saying there is not one in the country who can be trusted to give a fair and reasonable value on a property?" (Sarah Carey, The Irish Times)
"If you were selling your house tomorrow would you give the sale to an auctioneer who might advise potential customers not to buy at the asking price? Of course not. You’d sue him if you found out he told buyers to hang on until next year. He might advise you to wait a couple of years, but if you gotta sell, you gotta sell. Within all bounds of decency – but using all his skill as a negotiator and salesman – you are paying the auctioneer to get the best price." (Sarah Carey, The Irish Times)
"Dublin City Council handles 4,000 applications a year, many of which are controversial. Will the members now require an inquiry into every difficult decision to be made? There is already an independent process in place through An Bord Pleanála to deal with appeals against decisions of the city council and it demonstrates due diligence and fair process in action." (Dublin city manager John Tierney, in a letter to Fine Gael councillor Paddy McCartan)
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
NAMA acronyms
Other suggestions:
Never actually making anything
Not another mad act
Not about money anyway
National Association for Mucking About
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Quotes of the Week
“Most of them will be wiped out. I think you’ll be finding a rush of Ryanair tickets for the developers to places they’ll be hard to find in. Otherwise, the wife and chisellers will be out on the street.” (Anonymous property developer, speaking to Frank McDonald, The Irish Times).
"One way or the other, the game is up for developers and bankers who lost the run of themselves during the boom. All we now need is a full and frank acknowledgement from the Government that it artificially inflated the bubble and thus made the bust more painful for everyone." (Frank McDonald, The Irish Times)
"To save the next generation of questioning managers, we need to get to the bottom of what really happened to those who sounded warnings in the past. Launching a distressed assets "bad bank" agency is no excuse to sweep this issue under the carpet." (Gerald Flynn, Align Management Solutions in The Irish Times)
"It's as volatile as this: if just one guy on your road is being forced to sell and he slashes his price into the dirt, there goes the neighbourhood." (Paul O'Connor of MyHat.ie ... NOT. I did not say that or anything that could even be paraphrased by the 10th person in a game of Chinese Whispers as that. Grrrr: so much for getting good quality, useful information about the market out there! What I am quoted as saying is simply not true. One swallow does not a summer make, and one property transaction on a street does not determine the market. It might influence it for a time, depress it in the case of a forced sale, but the circumstances of other sellers on the street may well negate that effect quite quickly, and the overall appeal of the street will certainly be far more powerful in terms of buyers' ultimate positions in negotiations.)
"The relief will now be targeted on those who bought their homes when prices were at their peak. It will also support those who now wish to move, improve or buy for the first time. As house prices fall, the provision of mortgage interest relief will be kept under review with a view to eventual abolition." (Finance Minister Brian Lenihan, TD)
"The reason that some developers aren't interested in the trade-in is because of the stamp duty implications. They don't want to pay stamp duty on a property they aren't interested in. Delaying the payment of stamp duty will have little impact." (Carolyn Coyle, Savills)
"It's a sop to the industry, but it won't compensate for the hugely negative signals that the short-sighted Budget has given out." (Fintan McNamara, IPAV)
"There is no major benefit to the scheme but I could see how it would work in some cases. A first-time buyers' grant for one year would have been a better alternative. It would have reduced the stock and stabilised the housing market." (Hubert Fitzpatrick, Irish Home Builders Association)
"Landlords are increasingly being pragmatic about this problem and acknowledge that, as leases are long term relationships, they need to protect their investments and their rent roll. They are prepared to consider rent reductions. This is happening right across the board." (Jack Devlin of GVA Donal O Buachalla)
"That is the way things are evolving. I can see more and more people moving to this American model where shorter leases are offered and the landlord gets a percentage of the turnover instead of a rent. That is already happening in retail malls, like Kildare and Banbridge, and the same thing will happen in shopping centres." (Aidan Grimes of Bannon Commercial)
"We recognise the importance of tenant relationships in the schemes we manage and, in particular, the importance of keeping strong retailers and attractive retail offers trading. That said, we also must acknowledge the major financial obligations of the landlords and developers of these shopping schemes... In all cases we have asked tenants to provide full and detailed financial information to back up their position, as opposed to dealing with the blanket reduction requests that have been made by certain retail chains and groups which take no account of the individual trading performance of stores and locations." (Larry Brennan of Savills, The Irish Times)
"Stockbrokers didn’t see the obvious – for one simple reason. Stockbrokers are about as likely to tell you that the system is in big trouble as racing tipsters are to tell you that gambling on horses is a mug’s game. They both have to believe that the next big win is just around the corner. The truth that their game is up is as inconceivable to them as it should be evident to the rest of us." (Fintan O'Toole, Irish Times)
"Having made the fatal mistake of boosting the property market on the upside to satisfy their own political ends, we now are faced with the equally ‘appalling vista’ of buying bad assets too early with real cash and compounding the problem. We are about to unveil the most expensive ‘cash for trash’ scheme the world has ever seen, and no one is saying anything about it. The government is asking us to trust it on the price of a piece of land or a house. Why should we trust it? Nothing that the government has done over the past ten months would suggest that it could call the bottom of the market, so the potential for a monumental mistake is enormous." (David McWilliams, Sunday Business Post)
"There's definitely a pick-up, there is no doubt about that. Last week was the busiest week we had in the last year. We sold more than 50 apartments at the Waterways in the last week, which is all very positive. It's been a long time since we had that volume of sales over a five-day period." (Ronan O'Driscoll, Savills in the Sunday Independent)
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Quotes of the Week
"As such the emerging evidence appears to suggest that the property market is bottoming out and while we do not anticipate this will result in an immediate halt to price reductions it is likely that with hindsight this current period will be viewed as a period of over correction in the housing market." (Marian Finnegan, Sherry FitzGerald)
"It’s been extremely unfair of them to abandon the property market. Stamp duty has been a cash cow for the Government for years and they milked it and now it’s time to give property a break." (Conor Gallagher, Douglas Newman Good)
"They are not ready yet to bring back RPT (residential property tax). It is still being formulated. However, when they do introduce it they will have to offer a trade-off by reducing stamp duty." (Simon Ensor, Sherry FitzGerald)
"Would it [a stamp-duty holiday] kick-start the market? I’m not sure. Taking 7 per cent off the upper end, and 4 per cent off the middle range isn’t that enticing, with prices dropping as they are. Prudent negotiations will get you that discount anyway.” (Simon Ensor, Sherry FitzGerald)
"I think property has been marginalised in terms of revenue as a tax-take and I don’t think it’s relevant to this Budget." [It looks as if the market has corrected" itself pricewise and any "artificial remedies" will only boost it for a temporary period.] The main problem is the banking situation but that is not going to be resolved in this Budget. I believe the market will get going itself eventually of its own volition. The Government should sort out our banking issues which would solve problems in the property market and a few other things besides." (Des O'Malley jnr, Sherry FitzGerald O'Malley)
"It is important to have reached the bottom of the market before introducing any stimuli otherwise any positive benefit will be negligible. Once sales start to happen again the market will be indicating that is has reached a level where it is once again happy to do business." (John Cumisky, Cumisky Real Estate Alliance)
"They [the new breed of buyers making the most of a buyer's market] nearly have me on Zanex. The dread of my life at the moment is those BER certificates. They expect me to have one in my top pocket. It’s a head wrecker as they are standing in a period house with no insulation, single glazed windows and open fireplaces so the BER certificate is heading for an ‘F’ grade anyway." (Joe Kelly, Property Team JB Kelly)
"They knock on walls, stick screwdrivers through wallpapered walls and even remove skirting boards looking for damp. It’s a nightmare. And parents of first-time buyers are the worst. They come along to give their children advice but … one parent told me that the house was sinking and started rolling coins along the floor trying to prove that the property had subsided. Of course, once you see the clipboard, you know you’re in trouble and will be there for hours. They generally have a list of prepared questions and you can see that they have gone through it all before in at least 20 other houses. And some bring a compass to confirm the orientation. I’ve often thought that, if I could pick up a house and move it, I’d be a wealthy man!" (John Newcombe, Newcombe Estates)
"The number of times I am asked: ‘Have they gone bust or are they just divorcing?’ They then ask: ‘What was the price?’ Followed by: ‘What’s the price now?’ . Followed by: ‘And when will you be reducing the price again?’ They know their way around these days; they have all watched ‘Duncan’, and go around sucking their teeth and knocking on walls and tapping things. But, as Finnegan says: “We’re not complaining. It’s better to have know-alls viewing properties than no one at all." (Iain Finnegan, Finnegan Menton)
"Anecdotal information from our members would suggest that the level of investors is still quite strong which reaffirms that there is a strong mentality amongst people to invest in property but they are currently slow to move on this instinct due to the negative sentiment that still exists in the market. Introducing a property market stimulus would help bring stability, boost confidence and send a strong message that property remains a good long term investment. Owner-occupiers and investors alike are looking for signs of spring. Getting things moving again benefits all groups, not least the Government’s tax takings." (Paul Grimes, Chairman of Real Estate Alliance.)
"Our consultative group have recommended that if the government are serious about their green agenda, they should address this issue by giving buyers of A-rated homes a 10% grant towards buying." (Eimer O’Keeffe. CEO of Real Estate Alliance)
"Cash has dried up. Banks are not lending despite broadcasting ads saying they are. It’s difficult to get any money at the moment." (Tom Parlon, CIF)
"AIB has not changed its lending criteria. Each application is evaluated on its own merits with capacity to repay a key consideration." (AIB spokeperson)
"We call on the government to urgently find a mechanism to take account of the toxic assets of banks. Until the banking sector comes forward and declares its hand and honestly sets out those of its debts that are recoverable and those that are not, the economy will remain in a stranglehold. Without the details of the extent of these bad debts, funding from international lenders is at a standstill, stopping the flow of finance into the county and a vast array of lending to all parts of our economy, including small, medium and large businesses and the vital first time homebuyers' market. This stagnation is unacceptable; until the banks’ loan books are written down it is unlikely that we can move on from this phase." (Edward Carey, President of the IAVI)
"There has been a significant shift towards letting rather than sales activity, particularly in the latter half of 2008 and the year to date. We estimate that almost 90% of activity is now leasing rather than sales. Leasing activity took over as the dominant source of activity in 2008 and this is also expected to remain the trend for the rest of 2009 and into 2010." (Gavin Butler, Director Industrial Division, Savills)
"Mortgage holders on a fixed-rate mortgage have had to bear all these extra costs, cuts and charges too; yet their monthly mortgage bill has not reduced at all. One constituent told me his bank is charging him €14,000 to switch from his 12-year fixed-rate mortgage. It should be possible for the banks to offer a once-off penalty-free switch to existing customers. No-one is asking for a free ride, just a bit of fair play." (Roisin Shorthall, Labour spokesperson)
"The level of business has fallen away as the economy contracted, so the measures [layoffs] are simply a reflection of the current economic climate. We would hope that, by taking this action and taking a reduction in our salaries, it would reduce the need for any further action." (Angus Potterton, Savills)