• Knock knock? Who's there . . . in the market Ireland?s property market is stuck in a vacuum, with the only stimulus coming from the old reliable triggers: birth, marriage, death and, increasingly, debt..more

• Climbing back onto the property ladder Sick of renting, in search of more space or just keen to get their own place ? would-be buyers tell why they want to take the plunge now..more

• Property Investor Rental property owners are waiting anxiously to see how Nama will deal with the estimated 12,000 unsold apartments in the Dublin area..more

• Q&A ..more

• Take Five For ?600,000: Sherry Fitzgerald John Rohan is seeking ?600,000 for six terraced holiday homes in Tramore, Co Waterford. finds properties at a similar price in France, Turkey, Italy and Portugal ..more

• How ?NAMA 2.0? could wreak havoc on the real economy This post examines the transition from NAMA 1.0, the saviour of Ireland's financial system, to NAMA 2.0, an entity hell-bent on not making a loss under any circumstances. While ostensibly a safer deal for taxpayers, the true cost to the real economy of such a NAMA is only beginning to be understood...more

• Everyone?s a winner (sort of) with latest trends in rents This post reviews the latest Daft Rental Report. It finds good news for tenants, including new and returning students, who face lower rents for the third year in a row, and good news for landlords, with rents largely static for the second report in a row. The total level of supply, however, means that the rental market is still very fragile...more

• 100 ways to spend the Anglo ?25,000,000,000 This joint post with Brian Lucey examines one hundred different ways of spending the ?25bn that the European Commission approved last week for the Irish government to spend on recapitalising Anglo-Irish Bank. They range from the very practical (fight malaria) to the very amibitious (space elevators) to the very ridiculous (detach Cork). All of them give a good idea of just what a huge number ?25,0..more

• Five things you need to know about Ireland?s competitiveness Last month, Ireland's National Competitiveness Council published a report on the cost of doing business in Ireland. This post reviews some very important findings outlined in that report, in particular the importance of labour costs in a services-based economy and how much the costs of utilities and property actually matter for Ireland's competitiveness...more

• Pay bill figures show the need for public service transformation This post reviews how the wage bill changed across different sectors during 2009, using the latest CSO figures on hours worked and wages paid. Construction and finance have their own issues, but the most interesting comparison is between the public service, where the pay bill still has not fallen, and the rest of the private sector, where it has fallen by 13%. The only sustainable solution involve..more

• Applying for a mortgage? Don?t forget your cheque book The mortgage market has been really competive for the last 10 years or so.  As the property market boomed and lending soared, the banks and building societies fought harder and harder for your business. They relaxed their lending criteria, to make it easier to get a mortgage. They dropped their interest rates. They got rid of mortgage application fees. They paid your mortgage indemnity [...]..more

• Is time running out for people switching mortgages? If you are planning to remortgage or to switch mortgage lenders, you need to do it ASAP. Here’s 3 reasons why: 1. Due to the credit crunch, the banks are tightening up the rules they use to decide how much you can borrow. We have evidence that this is already happening, and the rules are likely to get [...]..more

• It?s back to school time for property solicitors The credit crunch has already claimed a lot of casualties in Ireland.  Home owners have seen their homes lose about a fifth of their value. Mortgage brokers have been forced to make staff redundant.  Estate agents have slashed pay, cut jobs and introduced forced unpaid leave.  Banks profits and share prices have been decimated. And property developers have been forced to slash house prices to help..more