Construction slowing in new home development sector

With competition for loan approval building, home development companies are feeling the heat. This year has proved to be one of the most difficult for possible consumers to obtain loans, largely due to the uncertainty that Brexit brings to the table. Due to the lack of accessibility of funds when attempting to purchase a home, many homes have simply gone unfilled. 

Goodbody Stockbrokers, a  company that specializes in asset management and global investment funds, has taken a clear interest to the changes that are currently happening in the market. This company developed a house building tracker, which in turn showed that from April to June 2019 there was a sharp decline in the output of newly developed housing. 

This is largely due to the fact that without the high availability of loans, many homes simply are not getting sold. In the lower priced areas of the housing market, there is significant competition but any home that is priced at or above €500,000 has been struggling to get off the market. In general, this trend is showing that affordability is becoming …

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HAP fails to assist

The housing market continues to prove that it is hard to penetrate by people who are eligible for social housing. In order to qualify, you must meet a multitude of standards. The most important of these being that you need housing and cannot provide using your own resources, you have a legal right to remain in the State, you are 18 years of age or older, and lastly your net income must be lower than a calculated threshold based off the structure of your family. 

If you are in the spectrum that allows you to receive social housing, then you are likely to be able to utilize social housing support that is run by the local authorities; this tool is known as HAP and it can be utilized in a multitude of ways. 

HAP went into effect on 1 March 2017 and has been available under local authorities. This program was implemented to allow HAP tenants full-time and still keep their housing support. It also gave rise to a more structured approach at organization by making all social housing supports …

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Some immigrants struggle to afford proper housing

The Dublin housing crisis has hit hard all over the county, causing the prices of homes and rent to skyrocket. These high prices have given many people looking for housing no choice but to resort to home or apartment sharing so that they can afford the monthly payments. 

As a full-time, successful employee, it can be hard to find a place that has every aspect on your wishlist due to both lack of supply and prices that rise with every additional feature. Finding a place to live within budget and within expectations can be very hard to do. 

   One group of people that has an extremely hard time being able to afford suitable housing is those who have come over on a student visa. Many young people and adults are drawn from their respective countries to Dublin so that they can attend university or english school. Although there are exceptional resources all across the city for this, one must thoroughly weigh the costs and benefits of living in a city as expensive as Dublin. 

After having the opportunity to talk …

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First time buyer steps explained

Being able to take out a mortgage has become a major hassle for all types of home buyers, but especially first time buyers. Recently, a 2018 study by the Central Bank reported that the best position to be in so that your request for a loan can be approved by one of the 7 largest lending banks is in a couple with a substantial down payment already available.

This is most likely the case because a couple can bring in two salaries, making a steady stream of income more reliable even if one person were to lose their job. Additionally, having a large down payment reduces risk for the lender. If you were to foreclose on a property, meaning you couldn’t afford to pay your mortgage anymore, there would be significantly less consequences on the lender side.

Although this is an ideal situation for approval, it is not the only solution. Plenty of first time buyers are individuals without extremely high credit scores and salaries, but there are a few key parts that must be fulfilled in order …

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New plot may lack space

Recently, a 125 acre plot of land in in Baldoyle, county Dublin has been given permission to plan for construction of at least 1,000 new residential units in the near future.

The land itself will be broken into two different sites; one will be used for a more expensive, modern type residence with a town center and grand landscaping. The other part will be used for a more residential area, with zoning estimations of up to 759 units on the land.

With an apparent lack in the amount of appropriate proportion of home buyers and sellers in Dublin, a shortage of housing has become one of the cities main focuses. This newly zoned area will continue adding to the already large capital city of Ireland.

Although there are many opportunities for growth within this huge chunk of land, I am personally quite skeptical of the livability of these areas. New developments are always shiny and clean looking on the outside, but can have a lot of inherent problems in actual habitation of these units.

If the …

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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 …

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Mortgage approvals up 45% in May

Data released by the Banking and Payments Federation Ireland revealed that mortgage approvals have gone up 35% May of this year in comparison to May of 2016.

 

There were a total of 4,124 mortgages approved in May, with a combined value of €884 million. This represents an increase of 1,078 mortgages and a €275 value compared to May of 2016.

 

This increase in mortgage approvals is likely caused by lower interest rates and by greater general confidence in the economy. It also represents a continuously growing demand in the housing market, and a supply that is slowly but surely catching up.

 

First time buyer mortgage approvals in particular are up 45.8%, the value of such mortgages also saw an even more dramatic increase of 60.7% compared to May of last year. This indicates growing confidence on the part of borrowers. First time buyers are purchasing more expensive housing and are seeing housing prices rise.

 

It is …

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The new fast track planning law: will it help boost housing supply?

A new fast-track planning law officially came into effect last Friday. It was passed in December of 2016 as a part of The Planning and Development and Residential Tenancies Act. After months of delays in which officials debated over application fees, the law has now been officially be enacted.

The Planning and Development and Residential Tenancies Act 2016, introduced by former Minister for Housing Simon Coveney, introduced the idea of strategic housing developments. It was intended to provide greater stability for tenants and to help streamline the planning process. An important aspect of the Act is the new fast track planning procedures it introduced. The fast track planning procedure allows developers to bypass their local authority and apply directly to An Bórd Pleanála, an independent authority that previously only made decisions on appeals after plans have been rejected by local authorities. The Board was established by the Local Government Act of 1976, and now its responsibilities will expand to include taking and reviewing applications submitted through the …

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What about small radical housing plans?

In speaking with several people within industry I have come across the same idea a few time, to the extent that the thought has occupied my mind and turned into this article.

The idea is that experimentation is part of progress, but that we rarely experiment with housing, in particular we rarely experiment with the ‘how’ of  it. Historically it has taken calamitous events to make changes, for instance, the timber and plaster construction of Tudor homes was replaced by the brick and stone of Georgian construction only after large fires and events like the Great Gunpowder Disaster of 1597 in Dublin.

So what if we did the following: take a single street in Dublin, Cork and Galway, ideally one which is fairly ruined (there are many) and we said that for this one street that people could do whatever they wanted in terms of building anything they felt was appropriate or what they wanted to do.

That might mean you have a four storey house next to some shipping container apartments or some other weird mix, but we could …

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