How has remote working affected rent prices in Ireland?

Because of the pandemic, so many people across Ireland have transitioned to remote work. While reopening is underway, it will still be some time before the majority of the workforce is back in their offices. During the pandemic, many people who lived and worked in major cities like Dublin found themselves returning to their home counties due to the opportunity to work from home. The Residential Tenancies Board (RTB) has found that a trend may be beginning with this movement of people away from urban centers due to covid-19.

Rents have increased across the State in the first three months of 2021 when compared to that same time period from last year. But perhaps as a reflection of people’s shift to remote work, rents have seen their sharpest increases outside of Dublin. During the first three months of the year, rents as a whole have seen a rise of 4.5 percent compared to the first quarter of last year. The nationwide average rent in euros for this quarter comes out to be €1,320, an increase of €33 when compared with …

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Mortgage arrears in Ireland fall despite pandemic’s economic effects

Over the past year, the covid-19 pandemic has caused many economic challenges for Irish citizens and people worldwide. Between level 5 lockdowns, business closures, and soaring levels of unemployment, it would be logical to believe that people may be falling behind on payments, especially mortgages, which are most people’s largest and most important monthly payment. However, recent data shows that the number of mortgages in arrears actually  decreased during the first quarter of 2021, despite level 5 lockdowns and record high unemployment rates.

Recent data from the Central Bank shows that the number of family home loans in arrears decreased by 2,838 during the first three months of 2021. During this period, the Covid-adjusted unemployment rate hit its peak of 25.1 per cent in early January, as thousands of businesses were forced to close their doors due to level 5 lockdowns. This is surprising given that the number of people behind on their mortgage payments actually decreased, while conventional wisdom would expect to see an increase in arrears. This contrast suggests that government supports, such as pandemic unemployment benefits, have …

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Getting a mortgage during the covid 19 pandemic.

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: …

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