Finance Minister Brian Cowen has said that the current turmoil in the property market is "neither unwelcome nor surprising" despite plummeting house prices around the country. The comments were reported in a story from today's Irish Independent:
http://www.independent.ie/national-news/cowen-house-slump-is-not-unwelcome-1070012.html
House prices have fallen by more than E9,000 or 3pc since the start of the year, according to the latest edition of the Permanent TSB / ESRI house price index.
The average price paid for a house in Ireland in July now stands at E301,267 - down 0.7pc since the end of July last year.
Niall O'Grady, Head of Marketing at Permanent TSB bank said the overall picture is one of a housing market "marking time" after a decade of phenomenal growth.
http://www.fxcentre.com/news.asp?1824288
The story in the Independent also says that: "The difficulties in the Irish property market were highlighted last week at a new housing development in Delgany, Co Wicklow, where people who bought houses for €700,000 have been shocked to learn that new houses of similar design on the same estate are now being sold for €595,000 -- a drop of €105,000".
2 comments:
It just occurred that Cowen made use of a double negative in his comments on the housing slump. This strikes me as a bit of a Bertie-ism.
Does anyone know if there is a psychological theory on double negatives? Are they meant to seem guarded or obfuscated?
I am not unaware of the non-existence of such a theory.I think.
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