7%-10% house price rise forecast

HOUSE prices are set to rise 7%-10% having fallen up to 40% from their peak, according to a new report.

It also forecasts a strong rally with the share prices of the main banks set to double in value to over €3 in 2010.

These predictions are contained in the “annual surprise list” of Pramit Ghose, managing partner at Bloxham Stockbrokers.

Ghose says that strong private investor interests, who still own about 50% of each bank, will prevent the nationalisation of the two main banks, contradicting the strongly held view in the market that AIB will be majority state-owned some time this year.

He also expects that Irish prime commercial and residential property markets will bottom out in spring/summer of 2010 and then start to recover.

The move will be modest and backed by what Ghose sees as “pent-up demand, attractive yields, renewed international demand and improving mortgage availability”. Both markets will end up 7 to 10% with positive momentum going into 2011.

On the currency front he expects the greenback will continue to strengthen, reaching $1.30 against the euro, while gold will retreat to a more modest $900-$950 an ounce from its current level of $1,130.

That dip in gold values well spell the end of investors’ love affair with gold as the global economic environment starts to stabilise, he said. That change will boost investor demand for income producing assets, he said.

Ghose also notes many of his forecasts came in very close to what he had forecast at the beginning of last year.

For 2009, Mr Ghose said the S&P would bottom out in February 2009 with the index reaching 1,100 at some stage over 2009.

It bottomed out on March 9, and then rallied strongly up to 1,115 at year end.

“It’s hard now to remember how bearish everyone was at the start of 2009, and that most strategists had been forecasting the S&P would fall below 750,” he said.

His added recovery forecasts for this year are coloured by the view that the momentum of new money flows and continuing profits recovery would be offset by “disappointingly modest economic growth”.