Friday, November 28, 2008

Guess the name and win of magnum of champagne for your office


The Property Week Limited started trading in Ireland in 2003. We called ourselves The Property Week because we started life as a newsletter summarising the week's residential property news and listings in a handy format for property professionals to keep up with what was happening in the market at a glance.

We were hardly even aware of there being a very important magazine of the same name in the UK, and because we were only involved with residential property it wouldn't have seemed a problem anyway. However, now that we have started monitoring the commercial property market, we do find the name becoming a problem.

After much deliberation we've finally chosen a new name and will be launching it in the new year. To celebrate we are running a little competition: the first person to guess the name correctly (entries via email to paul@propertyweek.ie) will receive a magnum of champagne & giant box of chocolates delivered to their office. (Our decision will be final, terms and condition apply and so on.) As we get closer to Christmas if we still haven't had a winner we'll start dropping big hints on the site.

Quotes of the Week

Week starting 24.11.2008

"If one strips out all property lending, and deducts lending between financial entities too, credit growth to the rest of the economy is shrinking." Scott Rankin, analyst at Davy Stockbrokers, Irish Independent, 27.11.2008

"Given the extent of the adjustment in the property market and the pain being taken this year, coupled with decisive action by central banks to free up the liquidity situation, we expect the market to bottom out by 2009 and for activity levels to pick -up throughout next year, albeit at considerably lower values and volumes." Joan Henry, Head of Research at Savills, 26.11.2008

"Currently brokers are involved in the valuation process, we generally collect the valuation fee and order the valuation, we then receive the report from the valuer and then send it on to the bank. I would feel that this is wrong, mortgage brokers should actually not be part of the process at all." Karl Deeter, Irish Mortgage Brokers, 24.11.2008

"No-one really knows when the bottom is until after it's passed." Paul Murgatroyd, Economist, Douglas Newman Good, on just how far prices will fall next year, Sunday Tribune, 23.11.2008

"This year the Irish economy, the Irish property market and the Irish investor have been badly bruised. Looking forward to 2009, challenges undoubtedly remain, but if investors and the public can gain assurance from an alleviation in the level of market volatility, and the decisive action being taken by global central banks to safeguard the long-run health of economies, then the light cannot but be turned on at the end of the tunnel." Mary-Kate McGarry, Economist in the research unit at Savills, Sunday Business Post, 23.11.2008

"Fianna Fáil has governed deliberately in the interests of their friends, particularly property speculators, rather than in the best interests of the Irish people. The result was an unsustainable property bubble, the victims of which are the many thousands of young couples who are now paying huge mortgages on overpriced homes, living with the anxiety of failing jobs and negative equity." Fine Gael leader, Enda Kenny TD, Fine Gael's 2008 National Conference, 22.11.2008

"Fortunately, I operate on my own. So I have not had to lay off staff. There are still people out there who will buy houses, but the vendor has to be realistic." Maura Donohoe, estate agent in Newbridge, Irish Independent, 22.11.2008

Friday, November 21, 2008

Quotes of the Week

Week starting 17.11.2008

"There are people (investors) in the dressing room limbering up. While it will be difficult for the remainder of the year and into January we may see some transactions again in February or March." John Moran, incoming Managing Director of Jones Lang LaSalle, Irish Independent, 20.11.2008

"This is something which is likely to spread to other lenders and will have a massive impact on the mortgage market." Karl Deeter of Irish Mortgage Brokers, on KBC Homeloans saying it would now only provide mortgages for 80pc of the value of homes, Irish Independent, 19.11.2008

"If our housing boom-and-bust cycle is comparable to our European neighbours, then we can expect it to take a minimum of 3-5 years for the market to recover." Dr. Stephen Kinsella, University of Limerick, Daft Rental Report Q3 2008, 18.11.2008

"It is important to keep things in perspective. The 'irrational exuberance' of the eighteen months before the summer of 2007 was a serious aberration in terms of the longer term development of a sustainable housing market. The market is currently undergoing a significant correction." Northern Ireland Housing Executive’s Head of Research, Joe Frey, 18.11.2008

"The amount of effort and skill it takes to sell a property now makes more demand on the agent, so fees will creep up somewhat. But they will still have to be manageable for the seller to afford." Fintan McNamara, IPAV, Sunday Business Post, 16.11.2008

"People have to see that developers are down to their bottom line now....If the banks pass on this half per cent cut in interest rates, things might change, but a lot of developers are just about keeping their heads above water now." Brian Byrne, of Wexford firm Cleary Doyle, Sunday Business Post, 16.11.2008

"Given the extremely sharp contraction in residential construction, these figures show the existing stock of unsold houses could clear quickly, once impasses in mortgage lending are addressed and confidence among prospective house buyers returns." Martin Whelan, communications director of CIF, on the Homebond figures for unsold new homes, Sunday Business Post, 16.11.2008

Friday, November 14, 2008

Quotes of the Week

Week starting 10.11.2008

"Our own surveys show that office rents are the only prime property sector to show a fall and that was down by only 4pc in the last quarter." Patrick Koucheravy, economist at CBRE, Irish Independent, 12.11.2008

"Commercial activity is now in the eye of the storm. In fact, the housing index bounced a bit but, essentially, still continues to trend sideways, indicating very low levels of activity." Ulster Bank economist Pat McArdle on its Construction PMI index, Irish Independent, 10.11.2008

"In more recent times it's been very hard to assess the market because nothing is selling. Although we still have a very strong residential sales department we decided we needed to plan for the future and that's how our new lettings service came about." Peter Kenny, Associate Director and head of city residential in Colliers Jackson-Stops, Sunday Tribune, 09.11.2008

"The Permanent TSB statistics, for instance, show that sales have dropped by around 9% this year. We've dropped prices by 9% in the past month to get deals done." Declan Cassidy, Managing Director of Gunne Residential, Sunday Tribune, 09.11.2008

"In the case of Irish investors, they probably decided to buy something nice a few years ago but it has now gone underwater and the banks want their money back. This is where we see the big pick-up in the market coming from." John Moran, Director of Capital Markets in Ireland for Jones Lang LaSalle, Sunday Business Post, 09.11.2008

Friday, November 7, 2008

Quotes of the Week

Week starting 03.11.2008

Chartered Land is "committed to delivering this scheme which will create a vibrant new urban quarter on O'Connell Street and reinstate it as the city's premier thoroughfare". Dominic Deeny, chief executive of Chartered Land, The Irish Times, 05.11.2008

"With regards to rental values, we've seen only a marginal decline in office rents. They have been marginal because the risk of oversupply has been muted by a number of office developments being put on hold and also by an intensification of competition for city centre office space. Although Dublin vacancy has gone up overall, in the city centre the vacancy rate has fallen to nine per cent. Over 80pc of outstanding requirements for office accommodation are located in the city centre districts." Patrick Koucheravy, CB Richard Ellis, Irish Independent , 05.11.2008

The members also voted to reduce the size of the Council from twenty eight to twelve members. This should benefit policy formation and help strengthen IAVI’s leadership position in the property industry. The benefits I believe with a smaller, tighter organisation are greater flexibility and a greater ability to react in terms of creating initiatives for the sector.” Derry Gray from BDO Simpson Xavier regarding IAVI restructuring, 05.11.2008

"I reckon the majority of first-time buyers who bought into the market over the last three years are in negative equity." Jim Power, Chief Economist with Friends First, Irish Independent, 03.11.2008

"We have been here before, and as sure as night follows day, we will be here again. The difference this time around is that the credit crunch has exacerbated the speed and depth of decline, and transactional activity cannot improve until such time as liquidity improves - something that is out of our hands and a problem to which there is no quick-fix solution." Marie Hunt, Director of Research at CBRE, Sunday Business Post, 02.11.2008

"We’ve had very few actual redundancies - what we have done is moved people from new homes into the valuation areas. There’s no doubt we’ve moved people around. But in terms of numbers, where we’ve been forced to let people go, there’s been very few." Angus Potterton, Managing Director of Savills, Sunday Business Post, 02.11.2008

"It has to be encouraging. But the issue for the housing market is supply. There is too much supply." Frank O'Dwyer, Irish Association of Investment Managers on the prospects for big mortgage rate cuts, Sunday Tribune, 02.11.2008

"Mortgage finance has really tightened for investors. Banks are more willing to lend to first-time buyers, up to 92pc of the price. But they are more strict about income and the type of income involved -- whether it includes things like bonuses and commissions." Geoff Tucker, Economist at Hooke & MacDonald, Irish Independent, 01.11.2008