This article is from page 18 of the 2013-03-12 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 18 JPG
A 36 PER cent increase in the numbers of houses sold in Clare last year may indicate that the property market is stabilising slightly, but one established auctioneer believes that growth in sales will drop again this year.
Diarmuid McMahon of Sherry FitzGerald Ennis believes that there was a surge in sales last year for a number of reasons, including tax relief on mortgages, but a lack of saleable property now on the market means the number of sales are likely to dip again this year.
“Availability is down on last year,” said the auctioneer.
According to the property price register, 565 properties were sold in Clare in 2012, compared to 414 in 2011.
Those buying were mainly first time buyers taking advantage of mortgage tax relief, and people with cash buying into the market at very low prices and prepared to keep the property for more than a decade.
“Prices have dropped an average of 50 per cent and often 60 per cent. Many places in Clare are selling for less than the construction cost. This cannot be sustained in the long term,” said Mr McMahon.
He said that there is currently development land in the Ennis area for sale for € 15,000 an acre with phase one zone development. This land would previously have sold for half a million euro an acre.
And while a lot of property was sold last year, the majority of it was stock that had been with estate agents for a long time.
“A lot of it was mopped up last year,” said Mr McMahon.
Much of the remaining property will remain on the books however as vendors are not prepared to drop prices any further, hoping that next year will not be worse, even if it is not better, explained the Ennis estate agent.
There is also very few new properties coming on to the market, he added.
The majority of those looking for a new home are first time buyers or young families.
However a lot of the property available is not necessarily suitable to their needs.