The latest indication of annual property price falls can be taken from Permanent TSB/ESRI survey which suggests that prices have fallen by 24% nationally between February 2007 to July 2009. Moreover, the current low interest rates and affordability were failing to encourage buyers back in to the market place. During the first seven month of this year prices have fallen by 8.7% to bring the overall annual decline to 12.5%. On a regional basis Dublin has faired the worse experiencing higher price falls than the rest of the county. New House prices have fallen less sharply than second hand houses over the last year with falls of 10.4%.
Our experience is that price falls have been larger than this survey would suggest. Moreover, we believe this would be reflected all over the country where prices have more realistically fallen by 20% consecutively for the last two years. Overall, therefore the market has moved by 40% since its peak.