Sunday Property Round-Up, June 24th 2018

I have included some of the biggest property stories of the week below, including construction and proptech.  If you missed last week’s Round-Up, you can catch up here:  https://propertydistrict.ie/sunday-property-round-up-june-17th-2018/

As always, you might let me know if I have missed out on any relevant property news by emailing  carol@caroltallon.com.

 

(Apologies in advance for any typos, it’s difficult to get good help on a Sunday. Also, I use voice to text dictation so just sound out anything that really doesn’t make sense in a strong rural accent and that should help!)

 

Sunday Read

 

Your Sunday Read is actually a Sunday Listen today as I have selected the latest Estates Gazette podcast for your weekly learning:

EG Property Podcast about the future of valuations with a panel including Lambert Smith Hampton and Aviva Investors: https://lnkd.in/gKzRfwH

 

Other Property News

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  • Niamh Horan in the Sunday Independent today reports that Harry Crosbie is seeking planning permission to convert his home  of 27 years  (formally an 18th Century warehouse) into a 20 bedroom hotel on Hanover Quay in Dublin’s Docklands.  This would be a wonderful addition to the area by the man who almost single-handedly revived the area over the past three decades.

 

  • Philip Ryan reports that the government is looking to make changes to CGT relief in an effort to stop property speculators using domestic home sales as a loophole.  More on this as it happens.

 

  • The same journalist has an analysis piece on page 20 of the Sunday Independent today headed ‘Complexities of homelessness crisis laid bare in stark facts and figures: Opposition silent as statisticians seek to explain the plight of hundreds of families’.   This article is referring to 2 reports that were published last week, one from the Dublin Regional Homeless Executive and the other from the Homelessness Inter-Agency Group.  According to these reports, there are 3,689 children classed as homeless in Ireland today.  95% of cases handled by the agency “involved families“. Also the report revealed that last year 343 families “chose” to stay in emergency accommodation rather than except the tenancy through the HAP scheme.  It appears that people in emergency accommodation or shunning the HAP scheme and opting to wait for a local authority home.  Readers here might recall that Conor Skehan was ostracised for saying this very thing only a few months ago, the report now shows that he was absolutely correct.

 

  • In the business section of the Sunday Independent today Fearghal O’Connor  has a follow-up piece to an industry news story that we have been covering here over the past few months. That is, government is set to redesign it’s procurement process for infrastructure  after repeated calls for change from the industry.  At present, public  procurement favours lowest bids instead of best beds,  leading to unsustainable tendering which is seen as a contributing factor to rising liquidations and insolvencies across the industry. In the first five months of the year more than 40 building companies have gone bust. Northern Irish  firm McAleer &Teague being the most recent examinership.

 

  • Developers Flynn & O’Flaherty  are planning more apartments at the former Phoenix Park Racecourse development. 77 apartments across four new blocks are expected to secure planning.

 

  • Dan White  Has an in-depth piece on page 5 of the business section today discussing how “housing crisis could yet sink our economic recovery:  with new building at lower levels and believed, so on prices and rents are a road in our economic competitiveness“.    The main thrust of the piece is that “the views of Central Bank Governor Philip Lane on the housing crisis, have been undermined by fresh evidence -based and more accurate statistics from the CSO which revealed a 5000 shortfall in the number of homes built last year“.  It is worth picking up the paper today if you are looking for an in-depth analysis of not only the housing figures but also the implications of getting it wrong over the last few years.

 

  • Ronan Lyons, in his column today,  advises that “housing bottleneck will worsen is population growth speeds up“.  He is referring to CSO population projections and it appears that Ireland’s population is expected to reach 6.2 million by the year 2050 (and not 2080 as previously predicted). This means that we need to build 1.7 million new homes by 2050.

 

  • Samantha McCaughren  reports that Greg Kavanagh ( formerly New Generation Homes, now Uniball Bars) is appealing planning refusal to demolish Clonskeagh House.  The developer had proposed building a 39-room guesthouse, despite local objections.

 

 

  • In The Sunday Times today Colin Coyle writes that Dermot Desmond is planning to demolish Walford, the most expensive home ever bought in Ireland, in order to build a contemporary mansion three times the size.

 

  • The lead business story in The Sunday Times today is by Gavin Daly.  He writes that Facebook is ready to invest €300 million to double their Clonee data centre campus.  This follows several weeks of positive announcements about data centres in Ireland.

 

  • If you are thinking of buying in the Drumcondra area, The Sunday Times is the paper to pick up today as it carries an in-depth feature on the area on page 4 of the property section.

 

  • On the front page of The Sunday Business Post today Róisín Burke reports that ‘US property giant (Round Hill Capital) to plough €1 billion  into Irish student housing market’  to deliver an additional 5,000 beds.

 

  • Also in the SBP today there is a sponsored (advertising) focus on digital construction on page 26 of the main paper.

 

  • Karl Deeter,  writing in the SBP today opines  that “The CSO has taken a crack at counting the new houses and, just like everyone else, they’ve got it wrong: Panic to build may mean we overshoot on housing“.   He points out that the CSO mechanism for registering new homes is not perfect as it excludes student accommodation and build-to-rent (BTR) or shared accommodation.  He concludes by saying “my belief in property cycles isn’t going to be shaken unless we avoid another one in the next decade. The imbalances already exist to ensure that a little variance in statistics – in particular estimated supply versus actual supply required – mixed with the unknown can mean we are paddling hard to leave the shore, then looking around to find we are in the middle of the sea… I am convinced that the market is heading for the bust.“

 

 

Proptech and Construction Innovation

 

 

  • Proptech Ireland is now a hub on TechIreland.com (Innovation Nation) and joining an international register to allow international proptech buyers access to products and services. This is a great opportunity for Irish companies to showcase to a targeted global audience. Proptech start-ups and established business need to update their company information here to be included:  *PROPTECH SIGN UP*

 

 

 

 

 

  • From Mipim Proptech: “Over 85% of respondents stated that digital technologies are relevant to their business, and yet a quarter of companies still have no official digital strategy in place. ” (I suspect that figure is much Irish amongst Irish property businesses…)Take a look at the findings of James Dearsley and Eddie Holmes’ survey on #proptech. http://ow.ly/htds30kBcHV

 

  • To keep up-to-date on all things tech and innovation for the planning, construction and property industries, head over to http://www.prop-tech.ie, the national resource website for innovators, investors and mentors or email news@proptech.ie .

Property Insiders Guide

 

As many of you might know, my annual property book The Irish Property Buyers’ Handbook (since 2011) has undergone a rebrand for 2018 and will now appear as part of The Property Insider series, published by Oak Tree Press, the first three titles are now published and *AVAILABLE TO PURCHASE HERE*.

 

GDPR for Irish Real Estate Businesses

 

Comprehensive Guide to GDPR Compliance for Irish Real Estate Businesses          

https://propertydistrict.ie/comprehensive-guide-to-gdpr-compliance-for-irish-real-estate-businesses/

 

 

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