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The property industry felt it could walk on water during the first half of the noughties, but after 2006, it all began to go terribly wrong. ORNA MULCAHY, FRANCES O'ROURKEand JACK FAGANreport

SO HOW did it all go so wrong in the property market? For a while there, mid-noughties, people in the property business felt they could walk on water. Now, with almost a decade of growth wiped off the value of Irish homes, both buyers and sellers are asking, how low can we go? Are we still in freefall, bumping along the bottom, or seeing the beginnings of recovery? Nobody wants to make the call.