Housing Induced Stress on Students

Students all around the world have been struggling with universities taking advantage of their wallets for quite some time.

It is only recently, the students of DCU have spoken up for themselves in the hopes to be heard and make a difference for all future student planning to attend DCU.

Their argument, one that is on the minds of many…what is up with these price hikes?

Every year student residents have been noting dramatic increases in the cost of accommodations for the academic year.

With the most recent price hike bringing the total cost to 10,000 euro. That, being, nearly triple the cost of attendance!

One of the most prominent arguments to this petition is the stresses that are already felt by the students in their regular responsibilities within the classroom.

Some price jumps are reported to be up from 29% the regular prices. A hike that is difficult to cope with and may defer some students from choosing to attend and further their education at all.

In many cases, the costs are outweighing the …

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The Solution to the U.S Down Payment Dilemma

Those looking to buy a home in the States are all currently saying the same thing is holding them back….They can’t seem to afford the down payment.

Down payments on houses can be burdensome and oftentimes weigh on the ability to buy a home. In some cases, it calls for years of disciplined saving. Something that can be difficult for someone who wants a home and wants it now.

That’s where the start-up company Loftium comes in with a solution. This is a business started by 29-year-old Yifan Zhang of Seattle.

As someone who has personally heard her friends talk for years about the down payment dilemma, she finally decided to do something about it.

Zhang started as any other Airbnb business owner. Renting out one room in her townhouse to generate extra cash. Little did she know just how much cash she could actually generate.

Quickly into her business, she was earning enough to completely pay for her mortgage and then have some left over!

That’s when the idea dawned.

Zhang decided to eliminate …

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An opportunity for home owners amidst rising house prices

The average house price in Ireland has risen 11.2% over the past year, and prices in at least 8 counties are currently rising faster than that immediately preceding the market crash. Rapidly rising prices, low interest rates, and insufficient supply are together representative of the current situation in Ireland’s property market. Although this situation has many market watchers worried about possible inflation, and is definitely a hindrance to buyers still seeking for a home at an affordable price, there is a perk that could result for homeowners with an existing mortgage.

 

This blog post will illustrate this hidden opportunity and give homeowners the necessary knowledge if they intend to pursue it.

 

For homeowners with a high standard variable or fixed rate mortgage, your interest rate is most often based directly on your Loan-to-Value  ratio (LTV). The loan to value ratio is ratio of your loan to the value of your property. Each lending institution may have a different way of calculating and determining your interest rate but in general, the higher your LTV, the higher your interest rate. …

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Is there or is there not another housing bubble?

In reference to No evidence of another Irish housing bubble, IMF says by Peter Hamilton on 26 June 2017 in the Irish Times.

The answer is no but close monitoring is needed. A Washington-based company, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), has confirmed there is no housing bubble in Ireland. Even with the quickly rising prices of property and an increase of mortgage approvals, IMF realizes this is significant but it is not a housing bubble… yet.

There is no statistics to show there is an imbalance of the pricing of houses. However, there is an increase demand for housing that could lead to an imbalance, especially with the Central Bank’s mortgage lender rules and the help-to-buy scheme for first timers. IMF has recommended close monitoring of the market to make sure a bubble is not formed.

The likeliness of this increase of housing demand should …

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AIB returns to stock market

Finance minister Michael Noonan officially announced Tuesday night government plans to sell a 25% stake in AIB, returning part of the bank into private hands. This marks AIB’s dramatic return to the London Stock exchange since it was nationalized almost 7 years ago during the last financial crisis.

Currently 99.9% government owned, the sale of AIB shares will likely be the largest stock market listing of 2017. Analysts estimate that the sale of shares will raise more than €3 billion for the government, contributing to AIB’s slow and steady return of the €20.8 billion of bailout loans it received from 2009 to 2011.

AIB is Ireland’s biggest lender, and since it’s nationalization, has worked hard to renew its image, slashing the amount of bad loans from 29 billion to 8.6 billion. With that and already €6.8 billion of taxpayers’ money returned, AIB CEO Mr. Bernard Byrne hopes the upcoming sale of shares will continue the bank’s process of recovery and reaffirms investor confidence.

Although …

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The great Irish deleveraging

This is like the Great Irish Bake-off but all about delevaging, Central Bank economists Reamonn Lydon and Tara McIndoe-Calder put together an excellent paper (05/RT/2017)on the topic, the full technical paper is here.

Our condensed and plain English version is below:

ABSTRACT The authors drew on the 2013 household Finance and Consumption Survey (HFCS) to stimulate household balance sheets form 2005 to 2014 for the purposes of investigating household leveraging and deleveraging during this period. The paper shows that deleveraging has proceeded significantly faster with older households as opposed to younger ones. With younger borrowers, tracker mortgages have eased the debt repayment burden in the presence of large income shocks. All in all, income shocks are the main factor contributing to mortgage repayment problems.

INTRODUCTION From the early 2000s through to the peak of the property boom in 2007, rapid increases in leverage ratios and repayment burdens far outstripped growth in disposable income, leaving households exceptionally vulnerable to the economic shock of 2008. One result of the crisis was the large increase in non-preforming mortgage loans. …

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Generation Rent? Try generation Broke

It bothers me when people promote long-term renting as a better choice than home ownership because it belies some basic facts.

When I was studying accounting, I was taught to be accurate. When I was learning about financial advice, I was taught to be prudent. Yet both of these concerns are often cast aside when debating the benefits of buying versus renting.

Nationally we are at an important juncture. It’s acknowledged that huge numbers of people won’t be able to afford to buy a home. If this proves to be true, many will also be locked out of one of life’s most wealth-creating activities.

The first problem is the nature of the comparison. If rent is €1,300 a month and a mortgage costs €1,500, then it’s cheaper to rent, right? Well . . . no it isn’t. The outlay is less, but the actual cost of the provision of occupancy is the rent versus the interest portion of the mortgage, not the entire payment. I will explain that point.

People often say rent is dead money. To be fair, so …

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Pre-emptive insolvency, the time is now.

A headline today caught our attention, it was about an injunction to have an insolvency solution honoured.

Personal insolvency is a legislation backed process (unlike informal debt deals) and for this reason you can’t unilaterally decide, as a creditor, to opt out of one that is already in existence.

What is interesting at this point in time is that many of the applications we track in the courts when gathering possession statistics are about applications for change of name of the plaintiff. This occurs when loan books are being sold and the proceedings are being altered to reflect the new owner.

There is considerable confusion even within the courts because of this and it may be a case that a person could use this as an opportunity to seek personal insolvency because in the midst of this there is a lower level of likelihood that loan buyers will engage in the process.

Failing to do this means they lose …

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Debt Relief Notice ceiling raised by 75% to €35,000

30 September 2015: The Insolvency Service of Ireland (ISI) has welcomed an amendment to legislation which will allow people on a lower income and with few assets to have debts of up to €35,000 completely written off.

The Debt Relief Notice, also referred to as a DRN, is one of the legally binding debt solutions provided under the Personal Insolvency Act available through the ISI. It allows for the complete write-off of debts such as personal loans, credit card loans, store card debts, credit union loans and overdrafts. An application for a Debt Relief Notice is approved by the Court and once it is granted, the person can no longer be contacted by creditors asking for those debts to be repaid.

Commenting on the legislative amendment, the Director of the ISI, Mr. Lorcan O’Connor stated:

“The Debt Relief Notice is intended for people with very limited means who are in genuine financial distress and we know from the hundreds of people who have availed of this debt solution already that it is life changing. I fully expect that the increase …

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RTE Talking Money: The cost of raising kids

This week on RTE’s ‘Talking Money’ we looked at the cost of raising a child. Everybody who ever had kids knows it’s expensive, but did they realise it can cost about €105,000 per child? That’s a real eye opener and that so many parents cut back on vital financial needs like life insurance to allow for general consumption is a concern. As always, you’re bound to be entertained as Karl Deeter and Jill Kerby ‘talk money’.

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