Are Irish banks the most generous in Europe?

Mortgage rates are rising, but at the time of writing they are higher in Germany than in Ireland, that isn’t the strange bit though.

What’s really strange is that the risk free rate in Ireland is higher than the mortgage rates available. In other words, financially speaking it is safer (if by ‘safe’ you mean accepting a lower return) to lend to a person in Ireland on a house than it is to lend to the Irish government. This is insane and it won’t last.

The response will need to be one of two things.

Banks stop lending Banks raise mortgage rates (or perhaps a little of 1 and a good dash of 2).

Take a look at government bond yields from last week, if a bank has a choice they can lend to the Irish government at 2.8% but they lend to people at closer to 2%. This is typically seen as an impossibility in financial markets so it will only last for a short time because as a rule there is no arbitrage, markets close them down …

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Negative interest rates are both gone and here at the same time.

Many commentators are talking about the end of negative interest rates in nominal terms and it’s true, interest rates are rising but in real terms they are still negative. Look at mortgage rates (for instance), you can borrow at 3% and below and meanwhile you have property price appreciation at 15% meaning that in real terms you are paying -12%.

If you can ever get something on a continuous basis at -12% that indicates ‘buy’, and that’s what people are doing, but notice that we mentioned ‘continuous’, the reality is that there is no arbitrage most of the time and this will be closed down by either rising costs, falling prices or some other outcome that we can’t forsee. Trees don’t grow to the sky, they never have and never will so the trajectory of house prices must rationalise but it’s hard to see how or where at present because the demand side seems so demonstrably strong.

I bumped into Kieran McQuinn on Pearse Street today and in our brief chat mentioned how the price changes are not sustainable, he …

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What is happening with interest rates, why, and what can you do?

What is happening with interest rates?

Interest rates rise and fall, we have been in a secular-ZIRP (zero interest rate policy) environment for quite some time and as people who subscribe to the monetarist school of thought, this would always lead to inflation which we are seeing now, albeit a fairly delayed response given how long this policy has been in place.

Why?

Not too long ago the yield curve was negative 20 years into the future such was the dismal outlook of markets for any level of inflation, but then you had a pandemic, the ‘great resignation’ and between labor and supply constraints along with monetary policy effects, there is inflation you haven’t seen in 40 years. Now the curve is negative only one year into the future and the price in the money markets has risen.

Just to clarify this, many mortgage providers get their money by buying it (you buy at X + interest rate and then ‘sell’ it to borrowers at X+margin [which is ideally above the price you bought it at]). In an oversimplified manner, …

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Is a ten year fixed rate a good idea?

Recently KBC introduced a 10 year fixed rate, they are not the first back to have done this, in the past other banks had them but their prices were high, the difference today is that you can get a 10 year fixed rate mortgage for below 3% and that means it’s worth considering.

First of all, why would you want to fix for so long? Obviously the longevity of a guaranteed price in a world where rates are expected to rise over time makes it attractive. This has to be balanced against the likelihood of competitive forces driving down Irish mortgage rates. Currently there is upside down pricing where fixed rates are cheaper than variable rates, how long this will last is anybody’s guess.

What we can do is look at the yield curve in order to get an idea of when rates might go up. Looking at that curve today (the quote date is from the 22nd which is last Friday) we see that yields are still negative a full six years into the future.  What …

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Q102 Drive at 5 features Irish Mortgage Brokers, Wednesday 26th April

Scott and Venetia had us on their show to discuss the property market and to go through some of the things that are affecting it.

They also found out how much he paid for his last haircut and a few other unusual things that you don’t normally hear on radio!

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How to knock €138,000 off your mortgage?!

This was an interesting piece by Louise McBride in the Sunday Independent. The assumptions were based on a fairly hefty mortgage figure, but the general idea remains strong, that if you get a lower mortgage rate you can save money.

Our contribution was to say that in an ere of low interest rates and with rates falling that “The banks all know that interest rates are coming down – and that one way to kill the switcher market is to get more people onto fixed rate mortgages,” said Karl Deeter of Irish Mortgage Brokers. “Banks are playing a defensive game. They’re not competing on variable rates – they’re competing on fixed rates instead.”

To us this is simplistic but also true, if banks fear attrition of their performing loan book the best thing you can do is take high variable margin from those willing to pay it, or who aren’t bothered by it (as is common with older loans) or to defend your position by locking in potential switchers seeking value by offering them value in return for commitment …

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Irish Times mentions Irish Mortgage Brokers on ECB rate move

The Irish Times mentioned Irish Mortgage Brokers in their story by Arthur Beesley and Eoin Burke-Kennedy on the rate cut by the ECB from 0.05% to 0%. The implications for borrowers are minimal, it’s more about ‘signalling’ to the market, the good news for debtors is that rates look set to stay low, which is awful news for savers.

“Mortgage broker Karl Deeter said monthly repayments on a 25-year €200,000 loan would drop by €5. The refusal of Irish banks to pass a succession of ECB rate cuts to variable rate mortgages has long been contentious.”

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Mortgage rates falling and set to head even lower

We were never advocates or in agreement with the ‘make government force mortgage rates down’ campaign (albeit on very friendly terms with the campaign promoters). The reason was that rates needed to come down in a natural way or banks would curtail credit or charge more elsewhere, this was a balancing act between sorting out operational costs and back book issues.

The belief we had, and one that does seem to be bearing fruit, was a slower (ie: less popular) road to lower rates, brought about by competition.

This has been happening, it doesn’t make headlines because it’s a slower burn but the trend is under way and it goes like this: more competition equals lower rates, the higher rates spur competition as it attracts new entrants and in time, when matched with a low yield curve, rates will fall.

The introduction of Pepper into the market, along with general competition has meant that the rate reduction cycle has begun. The hallmarks are that firstly, rates are high after a financial crash, that always happens, those high rates bring in …

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SVR’s: Comparing apples to oranges is bananas

The ongoing meme of standard variable rates being a ‘rip off’ has recently lead to a new bill being proposed by Senator Feargal Quinn. This is the most recent brainwave since the ‘tax banks to make them cut rates‘ idea.

Once again we see the politicisation of credit pricing which is avoiding many of the contingent facts on the topic which analytically is an error.

My old statistics lecturer used to say ‘comparing apples to oranges is banana’s’ and she was right, to compare two things they need more ‘likeness’ than the fact that both things happen to exist.

Here is a small list of things that occur in other jurisdictions that aren’t being mentioned.

1. Arrangement fees: Many jurisdictions (even around Europe) have arrangement fees factored into the loan, often this is 1% that the borrower pays the financial institution for setting the loan up. This reduces the need to amortize the cost of procurement …

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