Euro house prices to decline for ‘some time’

The Independent today interprets a bulletin by the ECB which predicts that house prices in euro areas will continue to “moderate” citing rising unemployment and tough credit conditions. Of course in Ireland we were resigned to a 10% drop this year (Irish Times survey of property pundits in January 2010) though that was before the NIRSA study which revealed there to be over 300,000 vacant homes and indeed the hotly anticipated UCD study which is expected to show in excess of 300,000 homes vacant. Tough times if you’re John Mulcahy and trying to put values on distressed residential assets.

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We are not Ireland – we will resist

So said some of the banners during the Greek national strikes on Wednesday and indeed that was a chant during the protests. Today we see that it appears Greece will be bailed out with loans (though what that will do for national debt and future debt repayments is unclear). It seems that Greece will also have to tackle its tax evasion, bloated public service and defence expenditure. It is still not clear whether the loans advanced to Greece will be any different to the loans advanced to NAMA and for the bank recapitalisations.

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