Haven’t posted much recently, shorter stuff is going to live over on my tumblelog.

As Bart heads for the States, it’s good to see that the willingness to embrace any alternate reality, no matter how bizarre has spread even to the ‘paper of record’ (*snigger*). The Irish Times property editor has had to ‘fess up that they knew various estate agents were lying through their teeth when they supplied the IT property supplement with private sales figures.

It’s not clear for how long they knew (forever might be about right when speaking of estate agents and lying), but by God they know now and they’re very mad about it all. They wrote letters to the naughty estate agents and put a new disclaimer on the sales page.

In the meantime, Dell announce their intention to, well, leave. Never would have seen that coming, wha’?

Maybe Bart’s timing hasn’t deserted him after all …

There was another big jump in the number of people on the Live Register in March, according to figures from the Central Statistics Office.

The seasonally adjusted figure rose by 12,000 from February to reach 199,900. This was the biggest rise on record. The unemployment rate jumped from 5.2% to 5.5%, a figure not seen since June 1999.

RTE: March Live Register rise a record

Apparently, Marc Coleman has used the word recession on national radio. He has presumably been added to the list of those who should be killing themselves for saying bad things about the economy.

Ireland Inc. can also give itself a big pat on the back for another record - according to the IMF, we are now the proud owners of the world’s most overvalued property market.

Report [PDF]

Meanwhile, the Irish Times advises us that “Buying a house can now beat renting”. Seriously, that’s a headline on the front page of the Business section.

Lets see the banks and estate agents spin this. [PDF]

The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable.

J.K. Galbraith

The Irish Auctioneers and Valuers’ Institute (IAVI) released a lil’ report today. The report states that there are 40,000* (count the zeros) empty apartment units in Dublin. IAVI president Robert Ganly interprets for us mere mortals - “Overall, I would say to people that the market is beginning to stabilise. The worst is over.”

Now, here’s what these same boyos said a year ago about the property market - “Property prices in the State should grow by around 4 to 5 per cent this year, according to the body representing estate agents.”

Here’s another ‘estate agent’ from across the pond (I use quotes because Mr. Adkins seemed to experience, em, favourable treatment and exposure on certain media outlets). Marvel at the similarity of the style.

Now, a concise explanation of exactly what is going on on the financial markets.

Edit: Sadly, Newstalk don’t seem to be podcasting Kiberd’s comments.

Still waiting for the piece de resistance, an audio clip of an angry Damien Kiberd having a go at all the doom-mongers on the breakfast show this morning. He must have felt truly vindicated by the close of trading on the European stock exchanges. It all seemed very rosy by 5pm, didn’t it Damo? Biggest one day losses since 9/11, and it was a public holiday in the US.

But back to the Irish property market. There’s one developer trying to turn his apartment complex into a hotel. A few hundred yards away, another developer has reopened the hotel he recently bought, hoping to convert it into a super-swanky apartment complex that reached almost all the way to the sky. These are the signs of a market that is functioning correctly, right? The fun-da-mentals are sound?

If the above gives you pause for thought, don’t worry too much about it. Tom ‘I’ll say anything on behalf of anyone’ Parlon is on hand to reassure you.

Question 4: will the doomsayers be proved right (needs RealPlayer)

Note how upset Tom gets when Matt Cooper mentions the elephant in the room, sorry, the empty houses all over the country.

Interest rates? Tom knows - “they’re always going to be about 4 per cent”

Even the FT have rumbled us for being a shower of chancers.

Edit, 10:15pm. The chancers are starting to fight amongst themselves. Geoff Tucker, Hooke & MacDonald’s chief ‘economist’ is on Newstalk claiming that the number of vacancies is closer to ‘a few thousand’.

THE President of the Law Society has attempted to move attention away from rogue solicitors — accusing the media of only focusing on a tiny minority.

But he admitted that new modern standards need to be put in place to reflect the substantial changes in the profession in the last century.

More from the Independent.

Andy Kaufman has a message for the President of the Law Society.

People need to be able to trust their solicitors. Simple as that. The Law Society should be working very hard to alleviate people’s real fears (Michael Lynn and Thomas Byrne seem to have run up quite some bills). The Law Society shouldn’t be talking about what they might do, with the implication that once the reassurance is more effective, everything will be fine.

We ourselves must look and see if we can satisfy and reassure the public in a more effective way

Another great example of the general lack of accountability for anything by anyone in Irish public life. As seen in the HSE, this is now systemic and standard. If / when Lynn does reappear, I fully expect to discover that the apparent fraud wasn’t his fault. It was probably the fault of his clients. Or perhaps his postman.

How come these academic economists suddenly seem much cleverer than the ones employed by banks and estate agents?

Dull and terribly predictable, wasn’t it? Will he, won’t he tinker with stamp duty to try and get things moving again? Of course he will. It may be a little too late for some of their buddies. At least these changes have removed the final excuse that has been bandied about by the vested interests who are this morning welcoming the ‘reforms’.

It is worthwhile noting the speed at which media sentiment has turned as regards property. For example, the Irish Times (a significant vested interest itself) has moved in little over a month from

The price of parking spaces in a new boutique scheme of apartments puts Dublin on a par with Manhattan, writes Property Editor Orna Mulcahy [1 November 2007]

to

It took a long time for some house sellers to realise that the market has changed, and now they’re counting the cost, writes Bernice Harrison [6 December 2007]

That’s Ireland has done some number-crunching on the budget which helps to put some of the changes into perspective.

The Sunday Independent knows.

THE latest theory doing the rounds in some property and banking circles is that London hedge fund boys are having an old fashioned crack at the Mick.

According to the theory, the City boys, sick of Paddy buying up key London landmarks, have seen an opportunity to put the boot in and short Irish bank shares.

Presumably someone, somewhere actually believes this. I’d love to meet them, since they could perhaps give me a comprehensive list of London landmarks that Paddy has bought up.

Whilst I’m on the subject, here’s a gem of a press release article from the Irish Times in January of this year. 

The body that represents the property professions has predicted that residential capital values will increase by a "modest" 4-5 per cent this year after a marked slowdown in the second half of 2006.

Oops. 

Here are some more predictions by ‘experts’ with an interest in keeping the property party going.

I see the future of the Irish property market. Will there be any builders developers left to build them though? Seems they’re all busy buying unsold properties from themselves, which is more than a little odd. I presume it will keep the house sales volume data up though.

He puts the increase down to rising rental yields, a growing perception among investors that interest rates are peaking and a trend where developers are mortgaging and renting out homes rather than selling into a depressed market.

I suppose it’s just another way of restructuring debt … 

I know this graph is old, and everyone’s seen it before, but Ireland has now definitely hit ‘Fear’. There are lots of anecdotal stories going around about houses dropping from €700K to €600K etc. and still generating no interest. Estate agents are laying off so many staff they are no longer able to disguise the fact. Principals of auctioneering firms are unable to sell their own houses, but reporting this FACT is a no-no. For Ken MacDonald, the Sunday Tribune article was "a massive invasion of my privacy and my family’s". I can find no reference to him feeling similarly outraged over the Sunday Independent’s coverage from last year. 

The idiocy / cute hoor level of the government will be illustrated by the upcoming budgetary efforts to re-inflate the bubble. Since the Taoiseach-in-waiting is nominally in charge of the budget, I expect all manner of tinkering with stamp duty and everything else related to property. Because that is now what our economy is based on, building and selling houses to each other. Unfortunately, the building part has just come to a very abrupt halt.

More: Goodbody Stockbrokers says Irish house prices will fall 13% from peak; GDP growth in 2008 forecast to plunge to 2.5% | Brendan Investments extends deadline (Eddie Hobbs has terrible timing)

Estate agent similes are the best.

Speaking to the Sunday Independent, Mr Wyse said: "This penal system of stamp duty is overtly anti-family. It is like a giant condom preventing people from having more children, because they can’t afford to trade up to a bigger house. Stamp duty has created a minor recession on its own."

Take that, Walt Whitman! 

On a more serious note, in Ireland housing registrations fell 66% in October, when compared to the same period last year. Yep, that’s down two-thirds. In the US, foreclosures are really taking off in some areas. To my eyes, Ireland seems to have been mirroring some of the ‘bubbliest’ parts of the US housing market with about a 12 to 18 month time lag.

In case you missed it, the Amnaoiseach yesterday added ‘smokes and daggers‘ to his growing list of original and always interesting phrases. It joins such gems as ‘I attended the LSE’, ‘I did not have fiscal relations with that money’ and ‘I cannot recall’ in the canon.