That link posted by CoffeeBrew states: "Some 65.2 percent of Europeans owned their own property in 2004, compared with 62 percent the previous year. Spain has the highest rate of home ownership at 87 percent, followed by Ireland at 81 percent and Belgium at 78 percent."
If Ireland had 81% home ownership when that survey was done, and 70,000, and the rumour is that a third of houses are unoccupied, it is puzzling that prices keep climbing.
By chance today I caught an afternoon t.v. programme "A Place By The Sea" (don't usually watch daytime t.v.). It featured a Limerick hairdresser who wanted to buy a holiday home in West Cork. His choice was some rather wonderful cottages around Schull, Kinsale etc. at what seemed to me very reasonable prices (£190,00 to £250,000 stg). I did a double-take when the programme anchor-person told him he could "expect to rent out a two-bedroom apartment for "about E1,000 a week" to cover the mortgage. Yet I read recently that the tourist activity in the regions - anywhere other than Dublin - had fallen off dramatically in recent years.
As someone starting to think about relocating to Ireland for retirement it is very difficult to get a sense of the realities of buying a home. If these 'vibrant centres of international yachting and tourism' are half-boarded up do I want to live there? If the property 'bubble' is about to burst and the country go into deepest recession (and then go bust-after-bust because of the huge social services commitment rise in unemployment would entail) it might not be the most cheerful arena in which to land up.
