IAVI Conference:Auctioneers were bullish at their annual conference. Frances O'Rourkereports

Land prices in Ireland will stay high because of demand from "lifestyle farmers", businessmen who buy 50 to 60-acre farms, and because farmers will continue to sell land for development, Jim McCarthy told delegates to the annual conference of the Irish Auctioneers' and Valuers Institute (IAVI) last weekend. The hard-hitting speech by the managing director of Agra-Terra, in which McCarthy explained why massive demand for wheat makes it an important crop of the future, was one of the highlights of the conference, said Robert Ganly, incoming president of the IAVI. Saying that "eco-fundamentalism now controls agricultural policy in the EU", McCarthy advised investors in farming to buy land in places like Argentina.

Close to 350 delegates attended the conference at the Lyrath Estate Hotel in Kilkenny, at which they heard talks on everything from the importance of branding for estate agents (by John Fanning, chairman of McConnells Advertising Agency) to the effect of pending legislation to regulate the property industry (by Tom Lynch, director designate of the National Property Services Regulatory Authority). EU Commissioner Charlie McCreevy talked about the challenge of competition and globalisation in a speech at the gala dinner.

There was a strong international presence, with speakers from the US's National Association of Realtors (NAR), the UK's National Association of Estate Agents and Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors. The US housing market is not in a bad state, said Pat Vredevoogd Combs, NAR president, who argued that the American market was full of opportunities; despite last year's decline, she expected house sales to pick up again in 2007.

Delegates were not happy with gloomy media reports about the Irish market, saying that while property price inflation has slowed, house prices will continue to rise, albeit at a slower rate, because of demand.

IAVI president John Dawson, who will hand over the office to Robert Ganly on April 17th, told delegates that the creation of the new regulatory authority brings into being "something the IAVI has actively pursued since 1922 . . . The template proposed in the draft legislation has the potential to transform our profession and to raise the general benchmark much closer to that set by the IAVI." Edward Carey is the Institute's senior vice-president elect and Áine Myler of Cumisky Real Estate Alliance its new vice president.