Madam, – As a legal adviser in property transactions since 1993, I am aware that sellers and buyers of property are only ever happy to proceed when they know they are getting the current market price, or near enough to it.
At a time when it is crucial to our State that certainty comes into our property market and into how we may value our State’s assets, we cannot go on any longer awaiting the next Permanent TSB/ESRI House Price Index, which is based on a ridiculously low sample-size of agreed sale prices and data from mortgage drawdowns. It is also clear nobody with sense places any credence on figures linked to a source from a lending institution. It is further futile to rely on any report of a selling agency’s published reports on asking prices. What sellers, buyers and valuers desperately need is up-to-date information based on the actual prices being paid for property throughout the country.
The only reliable source for such accurate data is the Revenue Commissioners Stamps Branch which obtains within 44 days of completion of sale full details of any such sale.
Since December 2009 the Revenue requires that returns for all property transactions are made by solicitors online. Besides the details of the parties, each return must contain the property address and actual price paid.
It cannot be difficult for our many State bodies to urgently combine their facilities to publish regular and accurate full sample price indices for the entire country and each city, town and rural area.
This precision, while being essential, may not suit many who would prefer uncertainty to continue or at least mask the reality in the market.
However, after two-and-a-half years of ineptitude, waffle and head-in-the-sand economics, it is time we all now know and face such reality. – Yours, etc,