Clíodhna O'Donoghue, Property Editor, Irish Independent

Irish Independent, 20 April 2007:


"John FitzGerald (ESRI economist) stated that if he believed there was a crash coming that he would sell his house and rent it back. Tellingly he is not doing so because he believes, as I do, that if (and that is a big 'if') the market is going to crash it will do so in a patchy, selective way which will not impact to any great degree on many of the existing homes in Ireland.

[...]

It also, regrettably, has caused distress to many recent purchasers and has also put off many young buyers who were intending to purchase their first home in the near future. Even if only a few people took it at face value, the programme still did much damage to market confidence which the presenter himself acknowledged as vital for the market's health."

(Not as much distress as the knowledge of having bought a house that's now worth half the amount paid, I wager - CMcK)