OSCAR WILDE once defined a cynic as one who knew the price of everything and the value of nothing. On that definition, house buyers or sellers in Ireland are clearly not cynics.
For, as yet, the public cannot know the price paid for houses that are sold, because no national property database exists to record and publish the price. Nor can the price paid for a house be disclosed and published, unless buyer and seller in a private treaty sale – the most usual form – both agree, which they rarely do. All this, however, is due to change, shortly.
Minister for Justice Alan Shatter has authorised the establishment of the Property Services Regulatory Authority. This will publish national house price sales and create a property database that will also contain details of new commercial leases.
The authority will also regulate how auctioneers, property managers and others in the property sector operate, and investigate any public complaints made against them. Mr Shatter hopes these reforms can help to restore investor confidence and revive a deeply depressed domestic property market. The property sector greatly needs that boost.
National house prices have fallen by some 50 per cent on average from their peak and the property market has yet to find a bottom from which to consolidate, and to recover. The lack of proper price transparency on property sales has not helped matters.
It has done little for market confidence, while necessary reform has been too long delayed. At present, the only price guidance offered in a house sale is the asking price that is set by the vendor, which may differ greatly from the final sale price. But how much similar, or neighbouring, properties have fetched when sold, cannot be established. This has resulted in an opaque property market, where uncertainty about price deters buyers and sellers, and means less sales activity.
Without reliable price data, that is freely available and easily accessible, neither buyer nor seller can make an informed investment decision. On the stock market, price transparency is seen as critical in preventing market manipulation of shares and the creation of a false market. The house property market should not be any different.
In Britain, house sales are registered and the details made available to the public. It is difficult to understand why in this country a simple change, so necessary in the public interest and first promised three years ago, has taken so long to achieve.