Property

Eddie O’Driscoll: Are we looking at the end of negative equity in Ireland?

In the medium to long run, it’s hard to see anything less than mid-single digit growth in house prices per annum

Negative equity left hundreds of thousands of homeowners and investors high and dry in the late 2000s and early 2010s. Many never recovered from this value destruction. Picture: Getty

For single property owners to developers with substantial investment portfolios, the period from 2008 to 2018 and beyond was a lost decade. Some never recovered; some did but only after drawing on levels of resolve and determination that they never knew they had.

In 2008, house prices in Ireland collapsed by more than 50 per cent, eventually bottoming out in late 2013 and leaving hundreds of thousands of homeowners and investors in negative equity.

Equity ...