Conor Pope of The Irish Times did an article on housing and quoted our firm extensively, see the screengrabs below.
Remove the lending limits to aid economic recovery? They’re considering it in New Zealand.
The Royal Bank of New Zealand (their central bank) is considering the removal of the lending limits – similar to our own – because it’s a countercyclical tool that is no longer needed.
“More recently we have proposed removing mortgage loan-to-value ratio (LVR) restrictions, as this is a countercyclical tool and we have been able to consider lowering this now that the risks of excessive lending have subsided and banks can now lean into a recovery. This should also enable banks to support customer needs”
That spells it out fairly loud and clear, if the tool isn’t needed then why deploy it? At the moment we are seeing massive issues with sales due to banks restricting in order to comply with the lending rules, this is an unforeseen consequence that will damage certain borrowers who have entered into contracts in good faith.
It’s worth noting that we took our lead in part from New Zealand on the lending rules, our new Governor is from there and house prices in New Zealand are also high – …
The Last Word on Today FM: What about property prices after covid19?
We were guests on Matt Cooper’s ‘The Last Word’ show on Today FM along with Marian Finnegan the MD of SherryFitzgerald’s residential business to discuss the residential property market and how it might work out in the wake of the covid19 pandemic.
Marian gave good analysis as you’d expect, Karl was pointing out that supply shortages would persist despite any changes that may occur in prices, the reasons for this being that the dynamics that existed prior to it hadn’t changed.
The full clip of the piece is below.
Property prices after Covid19
We did a piece with Pat Kenny on his Newstalk radio show yesterday. We talked about the reasons for why property prices may face a short term volatility but that when balanced against housing need in general that the pandemic will not make housing more affordable in the long term. For that to happen we need many other things to start to resolve such as land prices, non-construction costs and planning timelines.
Help To Buy For First Time Buyers
The name provides a definition for itself. First time home buyers are people in the market buying a home for the first time. Compared to other home buyers, such as trader-up borrowers and mortgage switchers, first time buyers have different benefits and restrictions when borrowing than other borrowers. The Central Bank of Ireland requires a 10% down payment for first time buyers. Now, for first time buyers, a 45,000 euro down payment for a 450,000 euro home may be somewhat daunting. However, the Central Bank has offered assistance for their first time buyers to keep them in the market. The Central Bank offers a help to buy program. This benefit allows for first time buyers of new houses and apartments to take a 5% tax rebate off of properties less than 500,000 euros. In a recent case at Irish Mortgage Brokers, a married couple came looking for a mortgage on their first home. The couple did not have a home in mind at the time, but based on their income, the couple had roughly below 500k to spend. Both individuals …
Dortmund Property Market – areas, prices and average costs
Areas and Districts
The city of Dortmund is divided into twelve distinct districts. All city districts are then subdivided into a total of 62 statistical districts. Some of main, more well known districts include Downtown-West, Downtown-North, Downtown-East, Eving, Scharnhorst, Brackel, Aplerbeck, Hörde, Hombruch, Lütgendortmund, Huckarde and Mengede.
Price fundamentals
Housing prices in Dortmund depend greatly on a number of factors, not unlike any other city. As any good realtor will tell you, pricing is mainly contingent on location. After that buys and sellers look for things such as year of construction, the condition of the property, living space, date of last modernization, final energy requirement (e.g. quality of insulation), surroundings, neighbourhood, car parking spaces or garages and much more. For this reason the following information may differ.
Development of prices / rents
The Empirica Price Database and others form the basis for the following comments on the property price development in Dortmund:
Depending on location, interior or other criteria from above, the current rent for an apartment in Dortmund are somewhere in between 7 € and 12 € per square …
Inflation Rates Return to Normal
The current housing prices in Dublin have been talked about extensively recently. The newest trend shows that housing prices have reached peak affordability and now some of the wealthy classes of people are having trouble affording homes. Current house prices in Dublin are more than nine times the average salary making them unattainable for the majority of people because mortgages can only be 3.5 times your salary. Additionally, these numbers have not been seen since the Celtic Tiger Era, however, the central bank has been more careful this time and increased borrowing rules unlike during the Celtic Tiger Era. Prices are now beginning to slow down because simply nobody is able to afford them.
Inflation has also cooled off recently with a decrease from 12.4% last May to 2.8% a year later. Dublin has seen a significantly smaller inflation rate with an increase of prices from the current year to May of .6%.
The region of Dublin had the highest median price of 366,000 Euros which is just over 9 times more than its average salary of 40,000 Euros. …
Low Unemployment Rate not Translating to Better Living Standards
Ireland’s unemployment rate has reached all-time lows and people are not able to experience the benefits. Rising house prices are increasing faster than the raise in wages causing bad living standards for many people. The Central Statistics Office posted an unemployment rate at 4.5% last month. Despite this low number, ICTU President Sheila Nunan is still worried about different groups of people that are affected. She mentioned additional problems like youth joblessness, skills shortages, and low employment levels for women as factors that need to be addressed.
Rent has risen approximately 8% in the last year while wage hikes have averaged about 3% over the same period. Many people are calling for wage hikes to be implemented to allow people to afford rising costs in the housing markets. Rent costs contribute to more than half of minimum living costs in Dublin.
The living wage refers to the wage that people need to earn to be able to afford the minimum basket of goods and services. Few employees have used that number as the starting salary for their employees and instead …
Affordable Rental Properties are Hard to Come by
Rental properties have provided the people of Ireland different options when it comes to living situations. People that cannot secure mortgages for various reasons and therefore are unable to buy a home look into the rental market.
A new Simon Communities Study has found that over 90% of homes available for rent within Ireland are not affordable for people with state housing benefits. The study indicates that the government needs to monitor and strictly enforce rent pressure zones, including the 19 new zones announced today.
The most recent publication of the Locked Out of the Market report found that approximately 8% of properties available on the market to rent were within the housing assistance payment limits. That percentage is drastically smaller compared to the percentage of the population that is using housing assistant payments.
The study found some alarming information that the government needs to take under consideration. Only one property was found available to rent within the Rent Supplement or HAP limits across all of the study areas for a single person. Additionally, only two unites were available within …
Falling House Prices in Dublin
According to the Irish Independent, housing prices in Dublin on average are decreasing by just over €1,000 per month. However, property prices in the rest of the state are continuing to rise slowly or remain constant.
Property prices have been determined to have decreased on average of €4,500 in the past quarter of the year. Since the beginning of 2019, property prices in Dublin have fallen by 2.2%. The price of an average home in Dublin is now down to €433,000.
Although the average cost of housing in the capital has decreased, Dublin remains one of the most expensive cities to live in Ireland. On average, properties in the capital cost two to four times more than property in the rest of Ireland. This data was reported from the Irish Independent and the Real Estate Alliance (REA) Average House.
South Dublin has seen the steepest decline in overall average home values. In three months, property prices of South Dublin have fallen by €6,500. Although progress has been shown in the prices of homes in Dublin, prices are still rising in other counties. Prices of …