Prop-arazzi

The Irish Property Awards are due to take place on 27th November. Click here to check out the shortlist.

20 Awards are up for grabs this year. Stay tuned to find out the winners and losers.

Sarah Teather, MP for Brent East has moved from business, enterprise and regulatory reform to become housing spokeswoman for the party.

Ronan Lyons, economist for Daft.ie is urging caution against the introduction of any tax breaks for first-time buyers in next week’s budget saying such measures were “what created the massive bubble in house prices in the first place”.

Daft says the average asking price for a house during the three-month period was just over €312,000, representing a 10.5% fall since the same time last year.

Co Cork and Co Clare have experienced the highest reductions in asking prices during that period.

The British Construction Industry Awards 2008 are due to be announced at a gala awards dinner at the Grosvenor House Hotel, Park Lane, London this week. The BCI Awards are widely regarded as the industry’s ‘Oscars’. The awards dinner will attract around 900  members of the construction industry in the UK.
National Construction Week is also scheduled to take place from the 8th of October. The aim of the week is to inform young people about the many careers available in the modern construction industry.

According to Nationwide this morning at 7am, house prices in NI have dropped 29.8% in the past year. Check out the NI figures below from the housepricecrash website on the reduction of the average house price:  Q2 2007 - £225,447 + £21,632 + 10.6% / Q3 2007 - £227,970 + £2,523 + 1.1% / Q4 2007 - £224,816 - £3,154 - 1.4% / Q1 2008 - £196,892 - £27,924 - 12.4% / Q2 2008 - £183,476 - £13,416 - 6.8% / Q3 2008 - £159970 - £23,506 - 12.8%

Reshuffle chatter suggests that Jon Cruddas MP is to replace Caroline Flint MP as Minister of State for Housing?….

Dublin City Council has turned down planning permission for 2 buildings in the last couple of days which suggests the council is looking to see out the City Centre Development Plan which runs out in 2011 before they start throwing up the skyscrapers. With no city planning strategy in place,  the height of buildings and proposed schemes seem to be dictated by the the height of the O’Connell street Spire.

Meanwhile at sea level a new liffey bridge is due to be constructed by 2011. Picked up in the Irish Independent this morning, the bridge is expected to look like a ’slender, single span, smooth concrete structure’….sexy.

Northern Ireland’s Construction & Property Group issued a fresh warning to MLAs returning to Stormont today (1.30pm) to put their differences aside and urgently work together to save thousands of workers from losing their jobs by Christmas.

In a major step-up for its campaign, members of the group, who represent hundreds of developers, builders, contractors and suppliers left devastated by the property downturn, told Assembly members that there was little time left to act.

Construction & Property Group spokesman Brendan Cunnane said:

“This industry is in chaos.

Workers from right across Northern Ireland already have soaring fuel, food and mortgage bills to worry about and this grim fear that their jobs could disappear by the New Year is making their plight even more unbearable. It’s time to stop burying our heads in the sand and do something.

We told MLAs they have a key part to play in putting together a clear and simple action plan that will safeguard livelihoods. But we also had to tell them of our fear that the local banks will scupper this important collaborative process by not coming on board.

Given the vast levels of funding that has been provided by the banks to builders and developers until the latter part of last year their continuing reluctance to engage constructively with their customers is astonishing. One local bank has advised the group that its exposure to the residential property market is in the region of £1 billion.  

It’s important that the Assembly understands just how much we need and depend on a viable, productive construction industry and I believe that by taking our fight straight to Stormont, MLAs will take our message on board.”

The Construction & Property Group said its members had already been forced to lay off more than 2,500 staff since the downturn got under way a year ago. It believes this figure will double by Christmas if efforts are not made to stabilise the market.

The Construction & Property Group was created following a series of public meetings during July, bringing together developers, builders, contractors, suppliers and others affected by the crippling downturn currently facing the residential property market.

The group constitutes a cross section of property development and construction industries across Northern Ireland and has also drawn interest from a number of professional services that supply and advise the property sector.

The organisation is urging all the major financial institutions to ensure that affordable mortgages are available, particularly to first-time buyers, and is calling for an urgent review of the Comprehensive Spending Review by the Executive to ensure social housing investment and shared equity schemes are more widely available.

The Irish Times has reported that IRISH NATIONWIDE Building Society is considering taking legal action against the Reuters news agency after it published an inaccurate report that the institution was holding “talks with its lenders to avoid insolvency”.

Reuters retracted the story late on Friday night, admitting that “material elements” of the story were incorrect and that it “contained false information”.

A spokesman for Irish Nationwide confirmed to The Irish Times yesterday that “the society is discussing the matter with legal advisers”.

The society’s chief executive, Michael Fingleton, told the Sunday Independent that the story was “irresponsible, false and untrue”, adding that “in the present highly sensitive economic, financial and commercial climate, the putting out of such statements is tantamount to commercial sabotage”.

Reuters did not check the story “in the way that you would expect”, Mr Fingleton said, adding: “We believe that we have the evidence to support our case.”

Woops!