Quotes of the Week

"Cheap accommodation, like cheap energy, is a competitive plus for any economy. In fact, if we look at successful European economies, cheap accommodation relative to wages is the basis of a dynamic economy." (David McWilliams, Irish Independent)

"In other words, to make it worth your while buying the house, the price would need to more than half from where it is now. We have to assume that the days of large capital gains on houses are over. Therefore, the average Irish house in these estates is likely to fall by anywhere between 50pc and 60pc in the next few years. And even that is assuming that prices don't undershoot on the downside the way they overshot on the upside." (David McWilliams, Irish Independent)

"Society empowers local councillors through the development plan process to zone land for development purposes. A system under which individual developers, in association with private banking, have reaped substantial benefit. Should their property rights still have primacy over society’s property rights as some pundits argue? The time has come to materially change the way development land is valued. The phrase the “common good”, as per the Constitution, should be given its true meaning and not the common good of property developers." (John Malone, Irish Times)

"It is in everyone’s interest to get the property market moving again. At its peak, the investment market was worth €3bn – this year we will be lucky to reach €300m. That means a drop of €250m in stamp duty revenue alone. And I have not even begun to think about the impact of declining property values on personal pension funds." (Phil Hogan TD, Fine Gael, address IPAV conference)

"People thought that no matter what happened with the property, if it came to the crunch, they could always dispose of it and there would always be a purchaser. The boom facilitated access to the property market for many new investors and now the impact of ever-decreasing capital values is hitting property owners hard across all sectors. A lot of owner managers entered the market on the back of the ongoing rising tide and now find themselves in significant personal and business debt, with lease agreements made in the past three years placing a huge burden on them. It used to be that properties ran themselves and there was always an occupier to fit the type of unit you had. This has totally changed and the need for companies to manage their properties effectively is now more important than ever." (Michael Hogan, managing director of Capital Assets)