Both Political Parties are Pointing Fingers

The Increase of difficulty in attaining mortgages coupled with rising home prices has caused Ireland to have the lowest rate of home ownership in 50 years. The main group affected is young people looking to buy their first home who do not have enough money saved up to meet the 10% deposit required to attain a mortgage. Additionally, Fianna Fáil Leader Micheál Martin stated, “a litany of failures,” when discussing how the increase of homeless children falls on the current government’s policies. Mr. Martin discussed how Ireland used to be one of the highest home ownership rates in the EU to now one of the lowest at 68%.

The government may be too complacent with policy or foreign multinational corporations are bringing in a lot of short-term employees who are looking for renting, but something needs to be done to increase home ownership following this statistic. Owning a home provides long-term equity to people in a form other than cash that can be a safety net in times of trouble. Additionally, having to pay rent during retirement years can cause …

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Institutional Investors Hurting First-Time Buyers

Big time investors in the housing market are affecting first time buyers and their ability to purchase homes. Large scale investors are buying lots of hundreds of houses at a time and renovating them and re-selling them for profit. Home buyers are feeling the pressure and are unable to find homes in their price range. Fianna Fáil is calling on the current government to investigate the current tax incentives for investors and believes that could be a way to make significant changes.

The Department of Finance has agreed to do a review on how much institutional investors pay in taxes. However, Department of Finance has already begun releasing statements defending their current stance on taxes. They acknowledged that institutional investors only make up a small proportion of the housing market. A small proportion still can affect hundreds to thousands of people. According to Savills Estate Agents, approximately 3,000 properties were purchased in blocks by institutional investors last year. Many homebuyers searching for homes contribute large investment funds to increasing difficulty in getting a house.

Nicola McCann and her partner from …

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Regulating mortage buyers is a political move not a sensible regulatory one.

Politicians are prone to playing politics, that’s a given. What is strange is that so few demonstrate a knowledge of the regulatory environment that banking exists in. While decrying a ‘lack of regulation’ they fail to see that loan sales are actually a result of regulation, the very thing they are saying they want.

If you have a long term agreement with a borrower that is a contract, it can and does stand the test of the courts. A fund buyer won’t seek to overturn that contract even though the loan is technically ‘not performing’.

This is an important point, if you got a split mortgage and it was agreed on a long term basis (as they are) then your loan is non-performing because part of the loan isn’t accruing interest. You are making payments in full on the other part, but it is less than the original contracted agreement. Any losses of interest are accounted for and already booked, but the loan itself is still going to be classified that way.

If somebody buys your loan they have to …

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Fianna Fail, the unsung heroes of landlords

Without realizing it, Fianna Fail are helping the property owners, developers and landlords that (at least by reputation) they were associated with in times past, that they are doing it while trying to help tenants is the funny part.

There are 150,000 tenancies in Dublin and Cork that will be affected by the new rent control regulations, but we have to remember the timing of this because December 2016 is a key month for rent reviews and the start of January is also a fairly active month in lettings.

When Alan Kelly changed the rules in late 2015 it meant a lot of (2014 and before) tenants got a passover of a rent review because landlords didn’t have the time to serve notice, new rents also then started to spike as landlords priced in two years of increases upfront.

This means that for many tenants the two year anniversary is up this month. Landlords have to give notice of an increase but the new price kicks in from month 25 (January).

By delaying the current legislation it means that the …

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The mortgage crisis

We were asked to speak at the Fianna Fail ard fheis in a panel on the mortgage crisis, our contribution was as an independent opinion on the topic, we were there with other independent experts to give context to the crisis which was a focus in the event. We would stress that in the arena of financial advice that politics doesn’t come into it and that while members of our firm exercise their right to vote, we don’t align ourselves with any particular party.

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