We are seeing a slow down in the growth of house prices across Ireland - rather than a sustained fall in prices according to MyHome’s latest quarterly survey.
The asking price for houses on MyHome’s database rose by 2.2 percent in the first quarter of the year and by 5.5 percent year on year.
This modest increase in the asking price of houses is likely to be reflected in future CSO figures which are based on a three-month average of completed sales of houses. Latest CSO figures showed a fall in the price of houses of 1.4 percent in January and 0.4 percent in February.
The slowing rate of growth in house prices is positive for the economy, according to Davy Stockbrokers economist, Conall MacCoille. Speaking to Newstalk he noted that the affordability of houses here was now beginning to stretch the resources of home-buyers here - particularly in the Dublin region.
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Aryzta has entered "exclusive negotiations" to invest with Lion Capital in France's Picard Group, it specialises in premium French food.
Under the terms of the deal, Aryzta would take a 49 percent stake in the company for €446.6m.
Aryzta formed when Irish company IAWS merged with the Swiss firm Hiestand - its primary brand in Ireland is Cuisine de France.
Last week it sold a large portion of its share holding in Origin Enterprises for over €400M. These proceeds are expected to be the main source of funding for the Picard deal.
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100 jobs are being created by a Waterford-based technology company.
NearForm, which was set up three years ago is opening new headquarters in Tramore.
It's already hired 40 staff - with the remainder expected to come on stream within the next 18 months.
The company specialises in cloud computing.
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After another long day of talks Greece has failed to produce detailed reform proposals. It is due to continue negotiations with its international creditors in the coming days in a bid to access part of its outstanding €7bn in bailout funds.
A spokesperson for the European Commission said, "Constructive talks are ongoing since Friday but we’re not there yet," adding that the proposals still "required a lot of technical work."
The country's current proposals hope to raise some €3.7bn by auditing bank transfers, curbing illegal smuggling, and collecting tax arrears. It also hopes to establish a bad bank and to raise €1.5bn through asset sales.
The country is due to pay €465m to the IMF on April 9th.
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Labour ran full-page ads in the Financial Times yesterday about the risks of Britain leaving the EU – they featured quotes from leading UK business leaders, as it tried to win the support of the UK's skeptical business community.
Four of the six leaders featured in the ads immediately distanced themselves from them, as they were concerned that it suggested that they were supporters of the Labour Party
This controversy overshadowed Mr Miliband's speech at a meeting with UK business leaders at Bloomberg yesterday morning. His speech included pledges about a new investment bank, new apprenticeship schemes and strong comments opposing a referendum on UK membership of the EU.
He said it would mean "two years of uncertainty over Europe was a clear and present danger to British jobs, businesses and prosperity."
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The Canadian investment group, Fairfax announced it was considering selling its full 2.9 percent shareholding in Bank of Ireland to other institutional buyers within a price range of 35.75c and 37.25c per share.
This could generate a profit of up to €255m at the higher price.
Fairfax, one of North American investors which bought a 35 percent stake in the bank in 2011 at 10c per share – thereby keeping it out of majority state ownership.
Another investor, Wilbur Ross sold his 5.5 percent stake in the bank last June to generate a profit of nearly €480m.
Band of Ireland shares were up 2.4 percent at 38.4c yesterday – it will be interesting to watch its share price in the coming days.
