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Just five short years ago, half of all Irish mortgages were for homes in the $57,000 to $85,000 bracket. Developers and builders had to make appointments to meet their bank managers. Now the biggest slice of the mortgages market is for houses up to $212,500, and the bank managers make appointments to meet their builder-clients.
Ireland, and Dublin in particular, is facing its fifth successive year of house price rises, up by 15 percent in 1995, by 20 percent in 1996, and by up to 30 percent last year.
Tentative figures for 1997 indicate more than one-third of first-time buyers were in the twenty-five to thirty age group, a quarter in the thirty to thirtyfive bracket, and about a sixth in the twenty to twenty-five age group.
Demand for newly built homes is high, with 38,842 completions in 1997, representing 10.6 units per 1,000 population-the highest in Europe.
A starter home in sprawling West Dublin that cost about $71,000 three years ago now sells for $142,000. New one-bedroom apartments in Dublin's city center can sell for more than that, depending on location. In wealthy South Dublin, exclusive properties frequently sell for more than $1.4 million. Prices in the scenic coastline suburbs of Dalkey and Killiney (home to Bono of U2, Formula One driver Damon Hill, writers, playwrights, and broadcasters, such as Maeve Binchy, Hugh Leonard, Robert Fisk, John Simpson, and a host of other glitterati) fetch double and sometimes triple that figure.
Part of the building boom has been fueled by the Celtic Tiger's unprecedented period of economic prosperity. The other side of the coin is the continuing Irish hunger for home ownershipone of the...