herald.ie/national-news/hous … 88935.html
New property slump? 
Not like they supported the use of the word “new” in the title.
I see evidence of house prices in Dublin being cheaper than they were in 2005.
We bought our first house in 2001 - Stoneybatter (well, off North Circular Rd if we were being honest).
Cost 164k IEP (208k euro at today’s exchange rate).
We sold it early 2005 for 312k.
Today on Daft the same houses (even a bit better as they are ‘real’ Stoneybatter being nearer Manor St) are looking for average 270k
daft.ie/1423041
there’s even one for 250k. I bet you could get this one for 230k.
daft.ie/1428666
So that must put us at 2004 prices anyway.
On Daft to rent a similar house costs between 850 and 1,300 a month.
We bought in 2005 for 15% more than a house in the development is currently on the market for. If someone wants to offer the 2005 price I’ll snap!
We’re selling at early 2002 prices! Lots of viewings, no offers as yet. Only on market for 2 weeks though.
still a long way to go. I’d say it will bottom out at late 1998 prices.
before or after inflation?
Given that we are now in a deflationary environment we could see the issue of adjusting for inflation largely irrelevent in another few year.
Its an easy comment to make, and theres lots of them on TPP, but I’m not sure sure its actually possible to realistically return to 1998 prices.
Our hse is currently at 04/05 levels, even allowing for a big difference between list and selling prices; at '98 levels a 3-bed semi in dublin was €90k.
irishlifepermanent.ie/ipm/media/house_price/index_releases/index_2009/2009-02-27/
Perhaps just like in the boom times, when we thought the good days would never end, perhaps the reverse is now true
Ah good old 1998… I remember it well. It may seem extraordinary that 3 bed semis were 90K (equivalent in punts) but at the time newly qualified graduates (I was one of them) were falling over each other to get jobs that earned in the range £11-13K, that’s E14-17K. And that was the time when our economy was steaming ahead because we actually were a competitive location for multinationals to locate in. So an average house and an average wage were much more closely related than they are today?
Arguably, a return to 1998 wouldn’t be so bad after all?
Not going to happen unless rents also go that way!
Rents are the “economic rents” paid on property,
so if the underlying “economic rent” doesn’t collapse, prices won’t collapse fall.
That said, rents are back to mid-2002 levels.
So it would follow that prices HAVE to fall back to that level also.
But lets not forget that rents SOARED in the period 2001/2002 because of budget changes to interest relief.
Rents also soared in the period of 1997-2000 because of the income tax reductions giving people more disposable income.
Therefore its possible to argue that the rents at 2002 levels were experiencing a bubble, in which case it would follow that 2002 levels were artificially too high. Now of course given that employment is falling back and we have an oversupply of rented accommodation, you might just be right 
In a sane market.
But neither rents nor property prices have had any real relationship to anything much for over a decade. Both numbers have been floating free in la-laa-land for all that time. I still sense there is huge resistance to the fundamental FACT that any number from the Bubble period is just plain nuts and will make no sense, and there is no point in using figures and trends from inside the Bubble to try and predict where prices (for sale or rent or wages or anything else) will end up. Anything from within the Bubble period is just loonytunes random noise.
That’s the nature of Bubbles, after all.
Ireland is not different. Until we see our house prices at a maximum of 3 to 4 times average salary prices will continue to drop. Rents will continue to drop too. Empties, empties, empties.
Yeah, our economic growth rates have regressed 60 years back to 1940s levels and we can handle that with equanaimity, but we’re supposed to panic because houses are gone back less than 4 years?
There is also the feedback loop to consider
I believe there’s another thread noting that 1998, the beginning of the bubble, was the year of the biggest house price increases (c.30%).
So if we’re talking about “going back to 1998 prices” we should probably specify whether we mean the start of 1998 or the end of 1998.
No?
I am selling at present and have gotten a couple of offers, both 10k higher than when we bought in late 2003 but we have put circa 40k into the house in repairs etc. According to my state agent that’s what we’re at, 2003 prices. I think it has a lot more to fall yet. I’m in D16 btw, typical 3-bed semi etc.