Lockdowns cause surge on home improvement spending in Ireland

The coronavirus pandemic created many unforseen circumstances in people’s daily lives. Perhaps the biggest among these was the effects of the lockdown. People had to stay in their homes for much longer than they normally would, and many people were stuck working at home. It is no surprise, then, that a record number of home improvement projects have been carried out over the last year and a half.

Research by Aviva Insurance Ireland shows that 1.5 million homeowners have carried out work on their homes over the past year, with the total cost of these projects coming in at more than €11 billion. In addition to these numbers, another 861,000 people have plans to undertake home improvement projects, the survey says. The survey captured almost every type of home improvement imaginable, from minor fixes like painting a room or replacing windows, to large projects like building extensions onto homes or adding a home office, the latter of which was definitely popular as the country and the world transitioned to a remote work environment.

Aviva Insurance added that this surge in …

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The Last Word on Today FM: What about property prices after covid19?

We were guests on Matt Cooper’s ‘The Last Word’ show on Today FM along with Marian Finnegan the MD of SherryFitzgerald’s residential business to discuss the residential property market and how it might work out in the wake of the covid19 pandemic.

Marian gave good analysis as you’d expect, Karl was pointing out that supply shortages would persist despite any changes that may occur in prices, the reasons for this being that the dynamics that existed prior to it hadn’t changed.

The full clip of the piece is below.

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Good Grub: When the going gets rough, help those less fortunate than you.

Some people decide that when the going gets rough, they’ll help those less fortunate than themselves, nothing can be more spiritually reaffirming than this type of attitude.

Denis Reilly (oh ate 6 2744727) started a GoFundMe to help raise money so that kids in Deis schools (Deis schools are usually in deprived areas where you get meals as part of your school day) can still access fresh fruit and vegetables. Within a short amount of time they raised over €100,000 and this will help to feed 5,000 families across Dublin for a month.

So far they have raised €119,000 with a goal of €250,000. They are distributing via Glanmore Foods who already supply non-fresh foods and this takes care of the logistics. This is some good news, worth hearing more of (so far only the indo covered it!)

See more at https://www.goodgrub.ie/

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Covid19 update

Due to the coronavirus pandemic our company is doing what we can to keep staff safe while still serving our customers through what can be a very stressful experience.

This has meant that some staff are observing self-isolation, others are working remotely and within our office building we are all segregated into different rooms, one person per office Normally the offices are shared.

Along with this there are issues with banks, longer holding times on call lines, reduced staff in the lending teams and banks are also trying to deal with existing customers who require assistance at this time with mortgage payment help.

So while we are still open, doing our best to close loans that are near drawdown and assist people who need us, there are significant delays within the system that are beyond our control.

In short, everything will be the same as it usually is but with delays and depending on developments that may arise regarding any government decisions these delays may become more or less protracted. Our intention is to go along with whatever the prevailing …

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