Tag Archives: Central Bank

While there was an overall 16% in the Irish residential property market in 2014, a prediction of what lies ahead is difficult, according to Marian Finnegan, chief economist with Sherry FitzGerald. “2015 is certainly a more challenging year to predict for many reasons, in particular the recent intervention by the Central Bank, in which the bank seeks to minimise the risk of another credit-driven property bubble by limiting loan to value and loan to income ratios. As this is a proposal rather than a definitive policy it is difficult to factor in what impact it will have on demand in 2015,” she said. Ms Finnegan noted that demand is recovering gradually, reflecting the uplift in consumer sentiment and economic growth. “Supply remains significantly constrained. As such there is every reason to believe that prices will continue to rise at above trend levels in the short term in many locations. This will be particularly evident in the urban centres where supply …

House prices in Ennis have begun to rise again after losing more than half their value over the past seven years and may be up by 20% this year. But the number of properties for sale are falling, as the supply of houses coming to the market contracts. “We’ve seen a significant change since the beginning of August. There was a change from March or April on but from August on – particularly in Ennis – quite a lot of housing supply was snapped up and the available stock has contracted significantly. Houses are selling but the supply is just not being replaced,” said Diarmuid McMahon of Sherry FitzGerald McMahon. “There are more people buying than selling and there’s no new supply. There has been nothing built in five or six years, and that’s starting to bite,” he said. Much of the impetus for rising prices comes from the rise in confidence in the economy this year; and also from …