About The Sunday Business Post 5th Annual Property Summit

News of Ireland’s property market continues to make headlines and top news items on a daily basis. Various predications on this volatile sector abound including fears of overheating, a broken housing market and the impact of Brexit on commercial activity. A year on from our last summit and it’s clear that Ireland needs, more than ever, an urgent rebalancing of our property market.

The biggest problem facing our government today is the housing crisis with the country’s housing supply deficit forecast to continue to 2020. Demand for housing has been driven higher by fundamentals such as population growth, employment creation and an improvement in credit availability. Against this background of limited supply, rents are soaring. Rents have now surpassed our celtic tiger peaks causing unprecedented social problems for families, young and old. It’s a serious situation and one that’s going to take time and thought to sort out. Whether it’s increased social housing, increased private housing or further policy changes and government initiatives, it’s clear that solutions need to happen and happen fast.

At the other end of the property spectrum, commercial activity appears to be thriving. The lastest CBRE figures for the first half of 2018 show that total spend was €1.86 billion with 8 transactions of more than €100 million completed in the six month period boosting overall spend. However, some skeptical forecasters see the market being inflated, warning against high hopes on Brexit and the lack of regional development.

At this year’s 5th Annual Property Summit, we’ve merged our residential and commercial programmes so as to ensure a thorough and in-depth analysis of what’s happening at all levels of property development and to seek what solutions can be brought to the table to resolve the bottlenecks, flaws and restore confidence. We’ll review in detail where Ireland stands at present in terms of residential and commercial development. What’s working and what’s not? What are the solutions to affordability for our middle class? Where are the opportunities for commercial investors? What is the real demand for housing? Where are we going in terms of investments, tax reform and regulation? What can Ireland learn from other European countries? What lies ahead for 2019? These and other questions will be discussed by leading experts from home and abroad at this year’s summit.

The Sunday Business Post’s 2018 Property Summit will bring together investors, developers & builders, finance providers & agents to discuss and explore the prospects of the Irish property sector and the practical solutions to overcoming its challenges.