The Sunday Indepnedent ran a piece quoting Karl Deeter on the danger of high house prices, he said that ‘trees don’t grow to the sky’ which is a common expression in economic analysis that warns of the dangers of extrapolation upwards.
It’s common to hear ‘never again’ until something does happen again and that’s a real risk in housing because the headwinds are there to encourage an industry to go into hyper-supply which does resolve shortages but which usually also overshoots.
When you talk about being in favour of ‘more property tax’ you quickly lose the room, but what if we had less income tax and more tax on immovable assets? This is a targeted wealth tax given the way that property and wealth are intertwined, it also means those with the most valuable homes would contribute more and could encourage down-sizing too which would help free up chronically under-occupied housing stock.
This can be an emotive topic, we understand that, but so is the plight of young people facing a market that isn’t affordable and a housing shortage that is driving prices to dangerous levels.
We spoke to Newstalk about the idea of whether the state needs to intervene to stop ‘cuckoo’ funds from buying up homes. This is because the sale of a housing estate became a national press story due to a fund coming in to buy it up.
It is understandable that people are upset, there are buyers who had set their hopes on living in those properties, but that emotion can’t eradicate the fact that renters are people too and they also need homes, family homes. Or that there are people who may not want to buy or can’t afford to who need family homes.
These things all need to be considered and it isn’t as simple as saying it’s universally good or bad, the clip will help to make this clear.
Newstalk Breakfast had Karl Deeter on to discuss the costs of building apartments in Ireland and what some of the issues are with the construction industry in general.
https://www.newstalk.com/podcasts/highlights-from-newstalk-breakfast/the-costs-of-apartments-report
The news that Ulsterbank is going to be winding up in a phased manner does have people concerned but it ought to be an orderly wind-down of operations and they issued the release below today as well.
Ulsterbank recently upped the ante in the mortgage rate-war by reducing a suite of their rates, the story was covered in the Independent which also quoted Irish Mortgage Brokers.
Karl Deeter said the cuts represent the latest shot to be fired in the mortgage rate war.
“In response to Avant Money’s European-style rates, Ulster Bank has had to respond and now it means that other lenders are under even greater pressure to follow or beat these rates.”
He said this means customers will win. But they have to switch lender is they are paying high rates.
It’s bizarre but true. A recent study by the Central Bank showed that the majority of borrowers stood to really gain in payment savings and interest payments by switching their mortgage and yet only a tiny fraction actaully do it.
Who do you know that would walk by a free €10,000? Nobody right? Yet you do, it may even be you, because if you pay a bank thousands more than you ought to because you aren’t willing to take the time to do some paperwork and switch your loan that’s precisely what happens!
Here are the main findings (verbatim) from the Central Bank:
Three in every five eligible mortgages stand to save over €1,000 within the first year if they switch mortgage provider, and more than €10,000 over the remaining term. Just 2.9% of mortgages switched provider in the second half of 2019. A diverse range of factors may inhibit switching, including psychological factors, lack of knowledge on the costs and benefits, and the perceived complexity.
Get in touch at info@mortgagebrokers.ie apply online or call us and we can help …
Here is a simple video that we found was good at giving you a quick explainer on what APR or ‘Annual percentage rate’ is.
We are really pleased to be among the very small and select group of brokers in the country who were asked to be part of the AvantMoney lending panel. If you want a low cost fixed rate from the mortgage arm of AvantCard then you must go through a broker and we’d be happy to help you should you want to work with a firm that has been around for almost 20 years and where every advisor has at least a decade of experience. Call us to find out more 01 6790990
There has been a lot of news about banks not lending to people who are receiving any wage supplements during the covid 19 pandemic. The initial headlines were about AIB who later rowed back on the decision not to assess any cases where people were on wage supports.
The other banks were more open to offering loans but they all have one basic trend in common which is that you can’t be on TWSS and draw down a loan. This may seem unfair but if you got a loan in July and were laid off in August in time a person would wonder ‘why did the bank give that loan?’ given that companies can only get wage supports if their turnover is seriously impacted due to the pandemic. So what can you do?
Delay: for many people they’ll be back to regular wages soon, talk to the people involved in your transaction and see if they are willing to wait. Withdraw: most contracts have ‘subject to mortgage approval’ in them. Ask your employer to take you off the support scheme: …
