The first time buyer conundrum, to buy or not to buy?

At the moment in Ireland there is a conundrum for first time buyers: should you buy now and potentially over-pay on purpose?

It’s an unusual one and it partly related to property prices, it is a combination of taxation changes that will occur from the start of 2012 and expectations of interest rate changes from both banks and the ECB.

The argument of ‘rent or buy‘ is well established, we produced report on it with Peter Stafford (now of the IAVI/SCS) and Frank Quinn of Senior College Dun Laoghaire, but this is different – buy now or buy later isn’t taking the default of renting as an assumed continuous option, rather it is a case of delaying for the sake of market timing.

The changes in tax are on the tax expenditure side, namely TRS (tax relief at source).

Currently it is applicable to a maximum of €10,000 p.a. and the rates applicable are …

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Mortgage options down 50% as of 2010

The Examiner carried a story about the number of options available to borrowers in the present market and the fact that they have dropped over 50% since 2008.

In 2008 there were 380 different mortgages available on the market across all banks and all rate suites, today, that number rests at 179 meaning that at least 50% of the choice is gone. That is also reflective of the fact that so many lenders have exited the market. Below is a list of several who are no longer lending here.

Halifax Fresh Mortgages Springboard Stepstone Nua Homeloans First Active GE Money Leeds

Many of these providers were in the non-prime/specialist/sub-prime category, however, a drop of 50% in choice doesn’t mean that there are no options left. Certainly tracker mortgages are a thing of the past as are Standard Variables (referring to new business for these products, existing clients will keep their existing product).

The other factor that makes this less spectacular is that many lenders replicate offerings, so when each lender pulled out, their two year fixed …

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The day I mis-sold an insurance policy

About five years ago I had a couple in with me who were buying a home, I was helping them to determine their insurance needs and I realised that they had literally no protection if either of them ever fell seriously ill – not via their job/employer schemes or individually. So I suggested that they consider some serious illness cover, it would have cost them about €20 a month but they were insistent that they only wanted what was ‘cheapest and nothing more’.

As an adviser, it isn’t my job to always accept what people say they want because often, with adequate probing and understanding they actually want something entirely different, a skewed but simple way of understanding what I mean is that when saving or investing the majority of people want ‘high growth and high security’ – when in fact, these two features are normally night and day, if there ever was an asset that could deliver high growth with deposit account style security then everybody would pile in and the market would adjust accordingly, therefore you need to …

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Property prices may fall, but finance prices won’t

Unless you are a cash buyer it isn’t a good idea to focus on property as a single cost, in a transaction there are two costs, that of the asset and then that of the finance for the asset purchase. I have done a few comparisons on costs where in two years time where a property has fallen a further 20% from where it is today.

As we expect margins on lending to rise considerably we have factored that in, along with moderate base rate increases. What we have done here is to take a view that prices may have fallen 40% from the peak to now, but they will fall a further 10% p.a. for the next two years, a further 20% from today or over 50% from the peak.

Purchase in 2010 €200,000 90% mortgage over 25yrs [€180,000] @ 4.5% [10yr fixed] base rate 1% margin c.3.5% repayment per month: €1,000 total cost: €300,000 balance after yr. 10: €130,785 Total Interest Paid by year 10: €70,845 …

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Mortgage Market Trend Outlook 2010

We have put together a report outlining the trends we expect to see in the Irish mortgage market in 2010. Many of the opinions have been substantiated from within industry and are evident in market information, however, we cannot say with certainty that anything mentioned is guaranteed to pass, only that we believe these trends are the ‘most likely’ and stating the reasoning behind them. You can obtain the report by clicking on the image below.

If you have any questions please feel free to call or email our firm regarding same.

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Mortgage questions: broker fees

Q: I am a first time buyer and am hoping to purchase a property this year with my partner who is also a first time buyer. I was just enquiring what are your fees for your service and what does the process involve?

A: Generally we don’t charge fees. We are paid commission by the Mortgage Lender and Insurance Company you choose to proceed with. We will advise you what each Lender and Insurer has to offer and try to secure the deal that suits your needs.

When you have chosen a suitable property we will take you through the process from putting down your booking deposit through to getting the keys to your new home.

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The risk of mergers to consumers

There is much in the news about private equity firms and various banks being ‘in talks’ about how they may work together (translation: some type of potential merger of parts of the business or total merger). Every bank seems to be in the spotlight right now and rumours are rife while fact is thin on the ground.

Every headline of every paper carried a bank story today, it is almost like society has moved from its fixation with property to a fixation with banks and their core tier 1 capital. If we mentioned Basel II accord a year ago people would look at you funny, today that and other terms akin to it are entering daily discussion at an alarming rate.

There is (as of today) no certainty that banks are going to merge, fail, succeed, or do anything other than what they normally do, however, if we were to make an assumption that at least three or four banks were to merge …

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