Some sellers don't want to sell

Intriguing little piece on the property pages of The Irish Times today via a report by magazine Property Week…

[The magazine’s analyst/journalist said] some of the properties owned by property investors were advertised to give the impression to their bankers that they were “trying to get their finances in order”.

These investments were priced up to 17 per cent above the levels advised by the agents involved, and were “clearly intended to repel buyers and just make it look like action is being taken so that the vendors can protect their financial positions”.

Here’s the original report. A stand-out quote;

Apparently, there are quite a few properties on the market owned by property investors (e.g. bankers) or developers who are merely going through the motions in order to placate the lenders managing their finances but with no real intention of selling at current market prices. From what we can gather, it may be that in order for them to continue to get favourable treatment from the institutions, they know they must at least be seen to be trying to sell assets and those assets must retain a certain value as collateral in their finances.

Tangentially related; Barry O’Halloran reports today that some developers are after more taxpayers’ money. Which is, in essence, them admitting they’re utterly financially screwed. Which brings me to another report published in the last few days by Property Week under the headline ‘Property market magic numbers’...

In Dublin;

4500 properties have come onto the market since the new year (180 per week)

2336 properties have gone sale agreed or sold (95 per week), many of which have been on the market since before the start of 2010.

So supply is still outstripping demand by almost 2 to 1.

The resulting downward pressure on prices is about 1% per month

Right…