'House prices are beginning to flatline': Is Ireland's property price boom finally slowing?
With Irish house prices finally showing signs of slowing, could the seemingly relentless rise in property values be reaching a turning point?Higher interest rates, the cost-of-living squeeze and the limits of what buyers can afford are beginning to take some heat out of the market, with Richard Curran warning that 'we're reaching the ceiling of what we can put our hands on or borrow or repay'. But with demand still high and housing supply struggling to keep pace, does a slowdown really mean prices could start to fall, or are we simply entering a period where, as Richard puts it, 'we could actually see prices flatline for a while'? And after more than a decade of rising values, what would falling house prices mean for first-time buyers, homeowners and the Government's housing strategy? Richard also looks back to Budget 2007 and the uncomfortable parallels with today, when a booming economy and apparently healthy public finances masked the trouble that was to come. Twenty years on, billions are once again pouring into the Exchequer, this time through corporation tax, but Richard warns that 'we haven't put away enough of that money'. And after €160bn in corporation tax receipts over the past decade, he asks a striking question: 'How did we allow ourselves to get into a situation where that's even an issue?' Today on the Indo Daily, Fionnán Sheehan is joined by Irish Independent columnist Richard Curran to ask if Ireland's housing boom is finally running out of road and whether, when it comes to the lessons of 2007, 'we have learned that lesson' at all.
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