House prices expected to drop by 40%

MORE than €120,000 will be wiped from the value of the average Irish house by the time the market bottoms out.

Goodbody Stockbrokers expects prices to plunge by 40% from their February 2007 peak when the average house price was €311,078.

This news comes as figures from the Department of the Environment show the number of mortgages approved by banks and building societies last year was more than half what was approved in 2005.