Till debt do us part

This may seem like a distasteful question to pose on a Sunday morning, particularly if you are sitting across the kitchen table from someone you love, but I’ll ask it anyway: do you think divorces are good for the housing market? Or, to put it another way, did...

Print and be saved?

If you only have to look at one chart this week, let it be the one on this page (chart one). It shows how Europe and Ireland have become cash economies because bank lending has collapsed. This slump in bank lending is why the European Central Bank (ECB) introduced...

Is housing too important to be left to estate agents?

It is hard to believe that we are at it again, but we are and it’s kind of surreal. I was walking past a small end-of-estate, three-bedroomed semi the other day. It is for sale, and it is going for auction – a sure sign that the mania is upon us again. The...

Property: here we go again

Last week, there was lots of talk about individual politicians but, in truth, these people – although mostly well-intentioned – don’t actually matter in terms of the economy. All the main Irish parties believe in the same economic orthodoxy, so in a sense they...

A sneaking sense of déjà vu

If you were worried about the Dublin property market entering bubble territory, then the government’s plans unveiled during the week, makes that bubble more, not less likely. The Construction 2020 document is long on aspirations and short on detail. There is lots of...