Northern Ireland property market dropping rapidly

The property market in Northern Ireland rose faster than anywhere else in Europe and now it is crashing just as fast, according to the latest analysis.

Analysts from financial group Bloomberg said house prices in Northern Ireland are collapsing almost five times faster than in the rest of the UK.

The scale and speed of the downturn has left several top developers on the verge of bankruptcy as debts mount and houses remain unsold.

As the value of some properties fall by more than £500 a day and they still don't sell, many developers, some of whom became millionaires over the course of a few months at the height of the boom, are now struggling to pay their employees and trading at the mercy of their banks.

But, while first-time buyers will benefit from the reduced prices, the lack of house sales has led to misery for thousands of people as removal companies, builders, estate agents and a host of other sectors linked to the property market axe jobs.

A survey from the Construction & Property Group, which represents developers, suppliers, estate agents, surveyors and other people connected to the residential property market, showed that 50 of its members had laid off 70% of their workforce since last June.

Spokesman Brendan Cunnane said developers have told tradesmen not to return following the holidays. 'If things do not change in the market quite quickly, one of the big developers will undoubtedly go bankrupt,' he predicted.

'I would say a lot of them are living on borrowed time because they are not meeting their interest payments. Developers have re-aligned their prices but there is not much more that they can do. They are offering rock bottom prices. Their futures are up to the banks,' he added.

John Armstrong, chief executive of the influential Construction Employers' Federation, said that he was hearing similar stories of financial desperation from leading players in the housing market.

He said that a number of construction companies would be in "significant financial difficulty" with the banks - particularly those who bought land at the height of the land boom last year – and said the redundancy figures from the survey sounded accurate.

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