Sign up to The Irish Times Archive (1859 - 2008)My Account »

WOULD INVESTORS buy shares in a stock market where transaction prices are known only to the buyer and seller, but not to other investors? Of course not. Investors would shun any stock market that lacked full price transparency. Nevertheless, that is how the domestic property market operates where the failure to publish sale prices for houses risks creating a false market, given the lack of reliable information available to buyers and sellers.

In Ireland, most house sales are not conducted by public auction but by private treaty. When houses are bought and sold in this way, only three people may know the sale price: the seller, the buyer and the auctioneer. But the public, by law, cannot know the price, unless the vendor and purchaser give their written consent to publication – and most do not. The auctioneer cannot reveal the sale price without breaching the law.