(click into the blog post for the video) We were really happy about taking part in panel on the Late Late show on RTE to discuss the rented sector and some of the issues being experienced in it at the moment.
TodayFM Last Word features Irish Mortgage Brokers and Joan Burton to discuss bank taxation
We took part in a conversation with Matt Cooper on The Last Word about bank taxation with Joan Burton from the Labour Party. We tried to make the point that short term thinking about bank taxation is a mistake, that we are better off getting the maximum amount of money back to the state rather than losing bank value in order to score a short term political win.
Today FM The Last Word features Irish Mortgage Brokers talking about Ulsterbank loan sale
We were happy to take part in a conversation on the Last Word with Matt Cooper about the recent Ulsterbank loan sale, Karl Deeter was there for Irish Mortgage Brokers and Mick Barry TD was also part of the interview.
Government Ignoring Social Housing Plans
In a time of a severe housing crisis, Ireland is looking for any way to lift the market and help people into homes at a price they can afford.
Recently, however, there was a turn of events that no one saw coming. The government has been accused of buying private sector homes rather than building social housing.
In an attempt to relieve the country from the housing shortage, the strategy was all wrong. By building social housing, the nation would have seen an incredible increase in the supply of available housing.
Something that is desperately needed.
Darragh O’Brien, a spokesperson on housing, is responsible for the gathering of the statistics in which proved that for at least the last two consecutive governments there has been nearly 1 billion euro of taxpayers money spent on the purchasing of private sector homes.
The data gathered, dating back to 2011!
These findings provide good reasoning to accuse Fine Gael of being overall opposed to the building of social housing.
An opposition that many wouldn’t agree with due to the high numbers of people …
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 …
How does the German mortgage market work?
The German mortgage market is facing a complex period with increasing competition and a smaller population that is eligible for a mortgage because the country is rapidly aging. Of the more than 82 million inhabitants, 50 million in the age group are 20-64 years old. But in 13 years, in 2030, there will be only 34 million Germans who are young enough to receive a mortgage.
Although Germany is the largest mortgage market in Europe after the United Kingdom, the German housing market is different from the rest of the EU market. According to Ilse Helbrecht and Tim Geilenkeuser from the Humboldt University in Berlin, the Germans feel much less committed to their own house than the British, Italians or Spaniards.
Only slightly more than half of the families own the house in which they live. The main reasons for this are a large range of affordable and high-quality rented apartments and a tax system which is not preferred by tenants. Some provinces have set up incentive schemes for first-time buyers, but they are small businesses. Mortgages are offered by …
Claire Byrne Live ‘The Paradise Papers’ explained 6th November 2017
Our compliance manager Karl Deeter was on Claire Byrne Live on RTE 1 last night to explain the ‘Paradise Papers’. This was a cache of documents that helped to expose tax avoidance on a large international scale. He explained the difference between avoidance and evasion as well as asking whether or not these papers were ‘good’ because if a person didn’t break the law should they lose the right to privacy?
These papers are likely to expose actual evasion and on that basis they need to be examined, we are confident that the news coming out of the Paradise Papers is far from over.
Newstalk: Pat Kenny Show speaks to Irish Mortgage Brokers
Pat Kenny had Irish Mortgage Brokers on the show to discuss NAMA, their role in building new housing and to consider some of the positives and negatives of this approach.
Shadow mortgage lending in Hong Kong
Property prices have been booming in Hong Kong over the past couple of years, and have yet to reflect any slowdown. While various governmental regulations have attempted to curb growth, a closer look at Hong Kong’s mortgage market reveals that shadow lenders are rapidly gaining ground. These mortgage lenders operate outside of financial regulations and have become the option of many buyers as more limits are placed by the Central Bank on traditional forms of financing.
Shadow lending describes private lending performed by institutions that are not tradition banks. These institutions can be financial intermediaries or other lenders and provide similar services as banks. These institutions do not necessarily create instability in the financial system, and can be greatly beneficial by offering financing to buyers in a time where restrictions on tradition banks are tight. However, these institutions lie outside the control of official regulatory institutions, thus their lending practices may be at greater risk if a financial downturn were to happen.
In most countries, the major of home loans are still made out by traditional banks, and …
Mortgage lending gets tougher in Canada
The Canadian housing market has been growing rapidly in the past few years. Currently, many experts fear that home in cities like Toronto and Montreal are greatly overvalued, a reflection on the general instability in the Canadian economy. While Bank of Canada has yet to announce its well anticipated interest rate hike that will curb the rapidly rising house prices, lenders have already begun tightening lending rules and raising mortgage rates.
Early this month, major lenders Bank of Montreal, CIBC and Royal Bank of Canada have all raised rates on various types of fixed rate mortgages. Both Bank of Montreal and Royal Bank of Canada raised mortgage rates by 0.2% and rates at CIBC raised by 0.05%. The higher rates of lending is thought to precede Bank of Canada’s anticipated rate hike, which may come as soon as tomorrow.
Accompanying the higher mortgage rates is a series of other lending restrictions put in place by Canada’s banking regulator, The Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions …