Buyers wait for gap in market

Buyers, according to one agent, are sitting on their hands and what's more they will continue to do so until well into September. The predictions are that in the autumn, when the season opens again in earnest, buyers will be increasingly confident and will be keen to flex their muscles in the newly cautious market.

"There's no doubt that agents will have to work much harder," says Robin Palmer of Gunne Residential, "Some agents, even some quite senior ones, have only ever worked in a boom market, so this new market will be a new experience for them and they'll find that they have to work differently."

Buyers, he suggests, will be "more pampered" from the autumn on and the telephone traffic will be going in reverse, with agents giving more service to clients and being more pro-active in dealing with would-be buyers. He also urges vendors to take advice from their estate agents - particularly in terms of price levels.

"Sellers have to stop thinking about last year and what something was worth then or what the house next door went for," he says.

Buyers may be increasingly slow to sign on the dotted line for a property, but according to Palmer they are still out there. "There is still money out there and people who wish to trade up, so all those things haven't changed," he says.

The auction rooms look set to be quieter from the autumn on, with agents saying that they are going to be increasingly choosy about the type of houses put to auction.

"Better houses will still go for auction," says Arthur McManus of Lisneys, "but there has been a lot of private treaty sales going through and that will continue."

"We're still in a buoyant market but the panic has gone out of it," says Conor Gallagher, of Douglas Newman Good, "and that has to be a good thing for everyone."

"In new areas, such as west Dublin, where there might be as many as 40 houses for sale in the same bracket, prices will have to shift downwards," he says.

However he suggests that supply could dry up in the older, more established areas, such as Blackrock and Clontarf. "If people in these type of areas look at what happened in the market at the start of the year and decide not to put their houses up for sale then that will constrict supply and keep prices in those areas strong."