EUROPEAN ESTATE agents at the conference hosted by IPAV (Institute of Professional Auctioneers and Valuers) in Dublin Castle last week were in a sombre mood by the time Professor Ray Kinsella of UCD’s Smurfit School of Banking Finance had finished his gloomy analysis of the financial crisis and the European property market. He said talk of “recovery” was nonsense, in that economies were unlikely to get back to the position they were in before the crash and that the outcome is “indeterminate”. Agents from all over Europe confirmed that prices in their countries had gone through the floor – but Jorgen Shick from IVD, Germany’s IPAV, struck the single positive note. House prices there, he said, have risen by 10 per cent this year.
It was the first time a meeting of the Confederation Européenne de L’Immobilier (CEI) had been held in Ireland, and there were some interesting exchanges on one of its main themes – how the EU’s energy efficiency directives are being handled in different countries.
Agent Martin O’Mahony said that vendors are refusing to get BER certs until a house is sale agreed and told Sustainable Energy Ireland’s (SEI) Owen Lewis that it should do more to raise public awareness.
UK speaker John Howell said he felt Ireland had made the same mistakes as the UK: “The seller has to pay for a cert, the buyer doesn’t get to see it until the house is sold, so there’s no incentive for the seller to improve the home’s energy rating.”
Professor Lewis did, however, have a bit of good news: from June, six months after BER certs became compulsory, there will be a national exam and a code of conduct for energy assessors, who will have to re-register annually.
