Irish house prices could fall 13.4% in 2011 so it is a good time to invest in Ireland

The St Patrick's day (17th March 2011) edition of the Irish Times had a headline "House prices call fall 13.4% in 2011 on bank test senario". House prices are on track to fall by a further 13.4 per cent in 2011 and 14.4 per cent in 2012 before recovering in 2013 under a scenario considered by the Central Bank to stress test the banks. The lenders are being tested to see how much of the €5 billion set aside in the EU-IMF bailout fund for the banks will be needed. The tests are being applied to certain Irish banks and building societies.

This is a worst case scenario in capital review. so could this be a good year to buy a second home in Ireland? The same paper runs a property supplement on a Thursday. This week's eight page feature is full of editorial with a large advertisement at the bottom "Distressed Property Auction" to be helf on Friday 15th April 2011 at the The Shelbourne Hotel in Dublin.

Ireland is now becoming affordable to Irish ex-pats and the property supplement leads with "Ireland for sale and expats are beginning to buy" - So there could be a lot more holiday homes and places where people will come back to retire to.

An interesting feature of the Thursday Residential Property supplement has been the "Take Five for €xxx" This normally shows a photo of a property in Ireland (This week a three bed semi in Wicklow town on the market at €175,000) and four other properties from diffferent countries where you can pay a similar amount of Euros for a property. This week there are homes for sale in the Pyrenees in France, Kemer in Turkey, Sardinia and the Algarve in Portugal.

If you do decide to buy that second home do make sure that you have adequate property insurance. There are several companies advertising on the jml-insurance website including Intasure and Copeland Insurance who specialise in this market. Find out more HERE