Privacy may at times be necessary, says Isabel Morton

THE TERM "private treaty" may soon have to be changed to "public treaty" as the term "private" can hardly be used if the details of the transactions are to be made available to the general public.

It will be interesting to see whether Bill Hawkes, the Data Protection Commissioner, agrees with Edward Carey, president of the Irish Auctioneers and Valuers Institute, regarding the publication of private treaty property sales prices. It would require a change in legislation or the introduction of a ministerial order to allow publication of house price information.

Opinions are divided among estate agents and others in the property business. Some feel that transparency is required - how can people make an informed decision on what is probably the single most important purchase of their lives, if they don't have any price comparisons to go on? - while others consider that sellers and buyers are entitled to their privacy.

The truth of the matter is that we all want to know what our neighbour's house has sold for. At the same time, we don't particularly want people to know the price we got for our own home. Bit of a catch 22. You can't have one without the other.

It was all very fine in the boom days, when the scores of auctions held weekly gave a fairly accurate picture of the market. Held in open auction rooms, the prices achieved under the hammer were a matter of public record.

This supplement published property sales weekly, often filling a page with auction results, the majority of them successful.

Sellers quaffed the bubbly, dined in Guilbauds and proudly announced the sale price to all and sundry.

It is all rather different now. Auction sales have dropped off dramatically - just 98 auctions have been held in and around Dublin since the beginning of the year, compared with 339 for the same period last year, and a a staggering 963 in the first six months of 2006 - arguably the peak of the boom.

Instead of guide prices, estate agents now talk of "asking prices". And the eventual price may be a good bit lower, achieved after weeks, or months, of wrangling and gazundering (where a buyer offers a certain price to begin with, and then comes back with a lower offer prior to signing).

We are all getting used to the game plan now, but it doesn't make it any more palatable. Having spent the last decade boasting about the ever-increasing value of our property, it is hard now to have to sell it at deflated prices. And then to have the result published for all to see.

If legislation is introduced to allow house prices to be released, we will all be able to find out exactly what the house down the road made, albeit well after the event.

That might knock a bit of mystique out of the business of buying and selling. It will also shed some light on transactions at the very top end of the market where every year a number of properties are sold "off market" for prices that are rarely, if ever, revealed.

These private sales generally involve large and expensive homes being sold by wealthy folk with a horror of publicity. Hercule Poirot would be hard pressed to discover the outcome of these transactions, as, in many cases, the agent involved will have signed a confidentiality clause, preventing them from discussing either the price or the identity of the parties.

Even at the height of the boom, when premium prices were being fetched in auctions, private sales flourished. Some vendors just hated the idea of the great unwashed tramping through their homes during open views - while others just wanted a quick, uncomplicated sale. They were happier to sell "under the radar", even at the risk of achieving a less spectacular price.

A private sale goes something like this: the vendor contacts one or two high-ranking agents in the top firms - operators known to have a list of private clients waiting to buy in any given area. They may also simply rely on an agent they can trust, who will then call around other agents to find out who's buying. The agent then tries to match the buyer with the house, and clients will be invited to "walk through" a property to see if it might suit them. If it does, a sale can be agreed quickly and painlessly. If no buyer emerges, the house may then be put on the open market, and sometimes a declaration of sale is used to "flush out" a private buyer who has been dragging his or her heels.

Private sales are still happening despite, or perhaps because of, the downturn in the property market. There has always been a certain kudos in buying and selling "off market" to avoid the tittle tattle.

In the past, vendors may not have wanted people to know just how much their house was worth. These days, a quick private sale may be just the ticket if they don't want the neighbours to know just how much its value has dropped.

TalkingProperty