Sunday Property Round-Up June 9th, 2019

 

The recent presidential visit dominates broadsheet commentary today so industry news is relatively light. Having said that, I have a number of international commentary pieces below that ought to be of relevance to Irish policy-makers. Also, we are heading into Placemaking Week Europe 2019 so any property developers, local authorities or AHBs wishing to highlight their work or any special initiatives may contact me directly on carol@caroltallon.com.    

 

If you missed last week’s round-up, you can catch up here: https://propertydistrict.ie/category/sunday-property-review/

 

Before we get stuck into the general property news of the week, below are a few local and international stories that might be of particular interest:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  • Very important: The Residential Tenancies (Amendment) Act 2019 changes the law for landlords and tenants. You can find out how these changes affect you by clicking here: https://onestopshop.rtb.ie/legislation-change

 

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 Listen

 

#PropertyMatters Ireland’s First Weekly Property Radio Show (& Podcast!):

Ireland’s first weekly property radio show, Property Matters, launched In January 2019 on Dublin South FM 93.9 and is now available internationally via iTunes and Spotify podcast (@iPropertyRadio). Seasoned political journalist and broadcaster, Bryan Fox, and I (Carol Tallon) team up to deliver 60 minutes of industry chat with guests from the areas of planning, construction, property and proptech. Produced by Katie Tallon of Hear Me Roar Media.

 

This week, we were joined in studio by Helen O’Keefe and Eddie O’Driscoll of Auctioneera – the fixed priced estate agency – to talk all things  proptech and to question how a low-cost auctioneering model can be sustained; Paul O’Connor from ACASM explains the evolution of building management systems and how AI is key in successful, ongoing predictive (prescriptive?) maintenance; Ed Burke, founder of RooMigo joined us to talk about the rise in co-living and negative public reaction to the media commentary surrounding this – who is it serving and how?   

 

Listen back to this episode here: https://anchor.fm/ipropertyradio/episodes/Property-Matters–June-4th-2019-e48rba

 

 

*Listen back to all #PropertyMatters episodes here: https://anchor.fm/ipropertyradio

 

Email the Property Matters team at hello@iPropertyRadio.com

 

 

PLACEMAKING

Public Consultation and Community Engagement

 

 

 

 

  • Conor Skehan, in the Sunday Independent today, urges commuters “Instead of fuming about congestion, why not change the choices behind your commute…We are the sum of our choices.Take ownership of your choices”.

 

  • Samantha McCaughren, in her Ergo column, writes about the public consultation process for the masterplan Castlelands in Balbriggan (through Fingal County Council), which recently closed having received “almost 400 largely negative submissions”. I was fortunate to be at the launch of ‘Our Balbriggan’ a month or two ago and there was a genuine sense of hope and expectation of change in the room; however, despite an auspicious launch, the traditional, siloed  approach to public consultation and community engagement appears to have damaged trust between the local planners and the local community. Vitally, is a two-way relationship that requires two-way communications (more about this over on www.PLACEengage.com).

 

 

  • What can the PLACEengage.com team here in Ireland do to mark Placemaking Week Europe 2019?

     https://lamarinalivinglab.com/placemakingweekeurope2019/

 

*PLACEengage: The future of speedy, successful placemaking for property developers is here – Property developers and project owners ready Public Consultation are encouraged to contact the PLACEengage team for full details*

 

 

 

Other Property News

 

 

 

  • In The Sunday Business Post today: US court finds Dunne’s wife liable for transfer of Shrewsbury Road mansion – The ownership of Ireland’s most expensive house, Walford, is still in dispute after a United States jury found it was the subject of a fraudulent transfer by bankrupt Celtic Tiger developer Sean Dunne (pictured above). This story also gets a feature on page 14 of the Independent that is genuinely more gossip-worthy than newsworthy so I don’t feel the need to relay the details here. Haven’t we moved on from taking pleasure at the downfall of individuals from an era that has now passed (collective responsibility and all that…)?

 

  • In the Sunday Independent today, Michael Cogley reports that that value of State-backed mortgage arrears has fallen by €108 million over the past three years.

 

  • Ailish O’Hora has an interesting piece on page 5 of the business section in the Independent: ‘High living: The answer for city housing or just pie in the sky?’. In reality, it is both. Commentator Mel Reynolds sums it up by explaining: “The only remaining impediment to wide-scale affordable housing is housing policy itself”.

 

  • Also in the Independent, Louise McBride has a feature on the ‘Ten steps to escaping the rental trap so you can own your home’; namely, start saving strategically, move home if necessary, educate yourself on State exemptions and grant initiatives, move county or move country!

 

  • Pat Gallagher, founder and Chairman of Gallagher Group is profiled in the business section of the Independent today.

 

  • In the business section of The Sunday Times today, Niall Brady reports that almost 40 ‘Vulture funds swoop in to be counted: Rush to be regulated follows new law to shield homeowners in arrears’. The new legislation bans unregulated entities from owning Irish mortgages and it has been confirmed at this stage that “all mainstream lenders have either sold to plan to sell mortgages to vulture funds in response to pressure from banking regulators to clean up their loan books”.

 

  • Gavin Daly in the Times reports on the ongoing Johnny Ronan/Salesforce/building heights saga by confirming that the developer has lodged new plans (reapplied?) for four blocks of up to 11 storeys in height.  We will keep a watching brief on this… In the property supplement of the same newspaper, assistant professor at UCD, Orla Hegarty, has an insightful opinion piece ‘High-rise: A statement not a solution: Knee-jerk political intervention in the debate over tall buildings is likely to leave Dublin’s citizens counting the cost’.

 

  • Also in the Times, K2 Data Centres has lodged plans for two further data centre buildings at Ballycoolin, 29,000sqm over three storeys for each building.

 

  • Glenveagh announced the acquisition of an 8-acre site on the Killruddery estate in north Wicklow for €9 million. The company expects to build up to 175 homes on the land.

 

  • And here it starts… In The Sunday Business Post today, Killian Woods reports that ‘Developer seeks to rent two-thirds of student digs to non-students’. This refers to the Point Village development – if allowed, this will effectively become the largest co-living development in the State (599 of a total of 966 beds). We can definitely expect to hear more about this in the coming weeks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Agile Agent

Getting Ireland’s Property Marketplace Digital by Default

The Agile Agent is a 12-month digital transformation programme for independent Irish estate agents and auctioneers, which runs from September – August. This programme will be delivered by a multi-disciplinary Irish and UK team and will go beyond proptech adoption to help agents get their industry digital by default.

 

Q3. March – May 2019 Agile Agent check-in now available HERE:

 

 

To get involved and for free Proptech Prompts, please

SIGN UP HERE

Proptech and Construction Innovation

 

 

  • From smart design and smart planning right through to the smart transaction (and all things smart city!), where does your Irish-led or Ireland-based #proptech business sit?  Pease take five minutes to add or update your details/category to our internationally-shared listing here: SIGN UP: PROPTECH INNOVATORS and STARTUPS

 

  • What is an ibuyer service and how will it impact property buyers and sellers? –

    ”The middle ground between traditional transactions and ibuying transactions here in Ireland might well be the introduction of a ‘buy it now’ feature on online bidding platforms, which could be slightly above or below the AMV, depending upon prevailing market conditions. This would simply make our current ‘smart property transactions’ smarter”

    https://prop-tech.ie/this-would-simply-make-our-current-smart-transactions-smarter/

 

 

 

  • Dermot Bannon And Jennifer Zamparelli Learn Just How Advanced Home Tech Has Become! https://extra.ie/2019/06/08/sponsored/dermot-bannon-jennifer-home-tech/amp

 

  • ‪PropTech startup raises $13M to automate house buying and selling across Europe:‬
    ‪“Kodit.io offers home sellers ‘fair cash offers’ for their properties within 24 hours based on market assessments using machine learning…”‬
    ‪https://techcrunch.com/2019/06/03/proptech-startup-kodit-io-raises-13m-to-automate-house-buying-and-selling/amp/‬

 

 

 

  • From Build Offsite: Do you have an idea or solution that could help University of Birmingham build the next generation ‘smart building’ for one of the most ambitious redevelopments of their campus in a generation? Any proposals that interest the University, could well turn into tangible project opportunities across the Campus development for those taking part. Register for a Dragons Den style pitch straight after our Residential Hub event on the 4th July https://lnkd.in/gtjbh-7

 

 

 

 

 

 

  • Forget San Francisco — these 6 global cities have thriving tech hubs that could make them the next Silicon Valley https://amp.businessinsider.com/silicon-valley-around-the-world-tel-aviv-berlin-stockholm-2019-6

 

 

  • 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

 

New Facebook Group for Irish Property Buyers & Investors

 

Crowd-sourcing answers topical property questions:    

 

As many of you might know, my annual property book The Irish Property Buyers’ Handbook (since 2011) was rebranded in 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 here.

 

From 2019, the publishers and I want to ensure the content remains topical and we are doing this by crowd-sourcing home buyer and investor queries, with crowd-sourced and editorial team answers. Join the Facebook Group here to contribute: https://www.facebook.com/groups/IrishPropertyBuyers/

 

 

 

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