What is the Help to Buy Incentive?

The Help to Buy incentive is a program from the Irish Government that provides relief to first time buyers of a new home or apartment. The amount of relief granted through this incentive was recently increased due to economic pressures brought on by the Covid 19 pandemic. In the July 2020 Jobs stimulus package, the Government increased the amount of relief available temporarily through 31 December 2020. With the passing of Budget 2021, this increased relief has been extended to 31 December 2021. The incentive gives a refund of income tax and Deposit Interest Retention tax (DIRT) paid in Ireland over the previous 4 years to qualifying first time buyers.

Help to Buy only applies to properties worth less than €500,000, and the home or apartment must be new or self built. To qualify for Help to Buy, you must be a first time buyer who either buys or self-builds a new residential property between 19 July 2016 and 31 December 2021. However, the Help to Buy scheme does not apply to rental or investment properties. The scheme is limited …

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Effects of ending the help-to-buy scheme

The help-to-buy scheme was designed to help first time buyers buy a home. First time buyers are encouraged to buy property through the help-to-buy scheme by refunds of income tax and deposit interest retention tax paid over the last four years. The help-to-buy scheme allows purchasers to claim a rebate  tax already paid of income up to €20,000 depending on the value of the property.

There is a move to end the help-to-buy scheme. This would be detrimental to the housing market. Figures have shown that more than 80% of all first time buyers are relying on the scheme to buy a home.

However, the scheme is scheduled to end at the end of 2019. The government has given no indication of an extension of the help-to-buy scheme.

According to theBanking and Payments Federation, 84% of new property purchases were made by first time buyers with the support of the help to buy scheme. Furthermore, chief economist, Dr Ali Ugur, claimed that the help-to-buy scheme was important for market stability. It was a key component in helping housing supply increase and …

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Start-up to Cause Shift in Housing Market

As I have previously written, the Irish housing market is currently experiencing a great crisis. With nearly no answers, the public is scrambling to find a way out, a way to the surface of all this financial distress.

This is where the Irish start-up Moove comes into play.

They’re entering the market with a goal to disrupt the market and give buyers and seller more choices and control during the sale of a home.

Yet to fully enter the Irish market, they are basing and forecasting the success of their business on the hybrid online model, currently based in the UK.

This model is currently offering sellers savings up to 7,200 euro!

Founder of Moove, David Madden started his career at the age of 17 as an estate agent at his parent’s business.

Having worked in the real estate business for many years, he has great potential in the start-up of such an inventive company.

Moove is designed to provide the same services one would find from a regular real estate agent, starting at a base cost of 1,800 euro.

…

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Making sense of ‘help to buy’

Yesterday Revenue announced the details of the new ‘help to buy’ scheme. It is designed to make buying a home more realistic for first time buyers and to increase the supply of new homes. Whether it’s a good or bad idea is beside the point, what most people want to know is how it works so here’s the breakdown.

It’s a scheme to allow first time buyers buying a new home to get a rebate of up to 5% of the purchase price or contract price (whichever is the lower) from income tax and DIRT tax paid in the past four tax years to a maximum of €20,000. The property must cost less than €500,000 or 600k for retrospective applications, the size of the loan versus the value of the property must also be 70% or more.

So, for every €100,000 of value you must be borrowing at least €70,000 the idea being that very cash rich buyers don’t need this help. It started on the 19th of July 2016 and goes until the 31 Dec 2019.

Now that it’s …

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