First-timers search for value in mature suburbs

THE ONLY real buyers in the property market right now are first-timers – and 75 per cent of them are looking for second-hand houses in older suburbs, where they’ll be near family and friends, says MyHome managing director Angela Keegan.

Why? Because some of them can now afford to – since if anyone’s getting mortgages, it’s first-timers – and they’re voting with their feet against buying in far-flung commuter towns.

It may be a straw in the wind, but this has to be good news – eventually – for the property market: if there’s movement at this level, the vendors of those houses will be able to move on and the market may start, however creakily, to move.

Both last week’s MyHome report on the state of the market and yesterday’s Daft report confirmed that, while asking prices are still falling, in the last quarter, they’ve fallen by the smallest amount (Daft says by 3.4 per cent, MyHome by 3.3 per cent).

Both property websites believe that their figures show that sellers who price their properties keenly will find buyers.

The fastest-selling properties in the country at the moment, says Keegan, are three-bed semis costing around €300,000 in west Dublin, in places like Lucan and Leixlip.

Property watchers fall on reports from the two property websites hungrily, because despite Government promises, they are still the only information available on the state of the market, especially now that the ESRI/PTSB price index has gone. And of course the reports are based on asking, not selling, prices.

Although it’s a month since Minister for Housing Martin Finneran announced he was going to establish a national house price register, on which a house price index would be based, we’re not holding our breath to see it, since legislation is needed to make it happen. Yes, as one commentator said recently, we’re steering blind after our worst property crash ever.