Negative interest rates are both gone and here at the same time.

Many commentators are talking about the end of negative interest rates in nominal terms and it’s true, interest rates are rising but in real terms they are still negative. Look at mortgage rates (for instance), you can borrow at 3% and below and meanwhile you have property price appreciation at 15% meaning that in real terms you are paying -12%.

If you can ever get something on a continuous basis at -12% that indicates ‘buy’, and that’s what people are doing, but notice that we mentioned ‘continuous’, the reality is that there is no arbitrage most of the time and this will be closed down by either rising costs, falling prices or some other outcome that we can’t forsee. Trees don’t grow to the sky, they never have and never will so the trajectory of house prices must rationalise but it’s hard to see how or where at present because the demand side seems so demonstrably strong.

I bumped into Kieran McQuinn on Pearse Street today and in our brief chat mentioned how the price changes are not sustainable, he …

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Promote housing, tax it appropriately and spend that money on making more housing

When you talk about being in favour of ‘more property tax’ you quickly lose the room, but what if we had less income tax and more tax on immovable assets? This is a targeted wealth tax given the way that property and wealth are intertwined, it also means those with the most valuable homes would contribute more and could encourage down-sizing too which would help free up chronically under-occupied housing stock.

This can be an emotive topic, we understand that, but so is the plight of young people facing a market that isn’t affordable and a housing shortage that is driving prices to dangerous levels.

Listen to the full clip here.

 

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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.

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Review of Housing Costs

Increasing costs of rent are hindering workers from benefiting from increases in wages due to the growth of economy and reaching full employment. The number of people who work are reaching record highs because of the booming economy. However, growth in wages cannot keep up with skyrocketing increases in homes.

The average cost of housing is increasing at a rate twice that of average earnings throughout the country. Rent has increased by 8% in 2018. The average wage increased by just over 3%.

According to the Center Statistics Office, the unemployment rate as of the second of July, 2019  is 4.5%. Although this is a relatively low percentage of unemployment other problems exist such as joblessness, skill shortages and low levels of employed women.

Modest official inflation figures are being questioned by various economists to determine if the figures are truly representative of what is actually occurring as increasing demands for greater pay is contributing to more pressure on workers.

In response to heightening housing prices, there have been many actions for the “living wage” to be heightened by an additional …

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The Slowing Growth of Property Prices

The cost of property throughout Ireland has skyrocketed over the last 20 years. With the uncertainty in regard to Brexit, prices of homes are said to increase by less than recent years. Slower growth in price of homes may appear to be beneficial for the Irish housing market, but in reality costs of property are still trending to increase in price. Prices rose by 3.9 per cent compared to 4.3 per cent one month earlier. The increase is about four times less than the average percent growth increase of past years in Ireland.

So how will Brexit effect the housing market in Ireland? Some individuals believe that if the deal goes through, Ireland could play a more significant role in Europe. This trend is becoming prominent in Dublin. Massive companies like Facebook, Google, Paypal. eBay and Microsoft have moved their headquarters to Ireland. This change over the last few years means that there will be an increase in jobs and thus an influx of people. The more people means demand for housing will only further increase. If there is …

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Today FM, Irish Mortgage Brokers feature on ‘The Last Word’ with Matt Cooper

We were pleased to be part of a discussion with Matt Cooper (Today FM) and Kevin Doyle (political editor at The Independent) on the topic of housing on The Last Word.

The analysis we provided was to make the point that help to buy cannot possibly be behind house price increases across the nation. We also made the point that prices would have risen even without it and that you need to look at the secular trend not just the short term ones.

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Newstalk 106: Rents are out of control, 23rd August 2016

Tara Duggan was presenting the ‘Right Hook’ and spoke to Karl Deeter of Irish Mortgage Brokers and Margaret McCormick of the Irish Property Owners Association about the issues around rents as news came out that they had reached boomtime levels.

The topics covered also reached into areas of taxation and new supply as well as the issues that currently exist due to past failures such as the ineffective rent control measures brought out in late 2015.

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Economic factors affecting the Irish property market (part II)

Unemployment

The causes of these dramatic price movements in such a short period are numerous as mentioned in the introduction but unemployment is certainly one of the most important.

At the start of the period the annual unemployment rate (April figures) stood 4.5% and remained relatively low until 2008 where it reached 5.4%. However as the financial crisis struck the unemployment rate climbed rapidly to peak at 14.8% in 2012. From then it has fallen to hit 9.8% for year ended April 2015  (CSO, n.d.).

As can be seen from the graph below the unemployment rates rise has mirrored the property index’s fall and vice versa to a very tight degree. I have divided the property indexes by 10 to make the graph easier to read and January 1st 2005 is 10.

So why could the unemployment rate affect the residential property prices to such a degree? Firstly traditionally most properties (more than 70%, though at present this figure is nearer 50%) are purchased with the aid of a mortgage and an unemployed person is not normally successful in getting …

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