Paying Off Mortgage During the Pandemic

Many people have found themselves struggling financially as the COVID pandemic drags on for longer than expected. In this, having to pay your mortgage may be one of the largest stressors for most. With that, there are some actions you can take to help deal with this.  

Always ensure effective communication with your lender. Speak with them if you are struggling to manage your finances and come up with a plan or budget system to repay your mortgage. If you are unable to repay, do not cancel or stop your direct debit without speaking and communicating with your lender first. On top of that, if you are unable to repay your mortgage in full every period, if you can repay it in a smaller amount than usual, then you should do that.

But even with everyone’s financial struggles during this period, the lender is not exempt from helping their clients. The lender may find that many of their clients are having issues with paying the mortgage in full and should be accommodating. But with that, the lender must also keep …

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How are online mortgages changing the mortgage industry?

How are online mortgages changing the mortgage industry? Not long ago, the idea of doing a mortgage online seemed almost impossible, yet here we are seeing mortgages being done online. They may not be for everyone but with so many things moving online, why not mortgages? With COVID 19, it seems to be the perfect time for this industry to grow.

You can simply link your bank account or upload your bank statements, tax information, proof of assets, and any other documents that are needed securely online. This saves the time of having to collect these documents and is much more efficient. Being able to apply online, takes away the manual work of entering data which can also help reduce the number of errors that can occur with traditional ways of applying. You are also able to sign online which keeps you from having to interact in person during these times.

For those of you who are not the best at keeping your paperwork organized, this may be the answer for you. It is much easier to organize and find …

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Why Use a Mortgage Broker?

You may not know whether or not you want to use a mortgage broker or why people use them in the first place. How do they help and what do they do? Let’s go over why people use mortgage brokers and what they do for you.

First of all what is a mortgage broker? A mortgage broker is a person that is working with you and the lenders. He is the middleman that will be advising you (client) on the mortgage that is going to work best for you.

Unlike banks, mortgage brokers can work with you and multiple lenders. They’re the middleman when it comes to getting you the mortgage that is going to work best for you. They can shop around for you, work with multiple banks, and work with you on problems that may occur. Since you are working one on one with a mortgage broker, they can also explain things and perhaps give you advice on how to improve in certain areas.

Working with a professional mortgage broker allows you the opportunity of possibly having them …

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The Last Word on TodayFM features Irish Mortgage Brokers, 30/04/2020

We were part of a discussion around Covid19 and mortgages on Matt Cooper’s ‘The Last Word’ show on Today FM yesterday. The other participant was Brian Hayes of the Banking and Payments Federation of Ireland.

For our part we were impressed with the fact that the banks have been able to do more than 2,000 mortgage restructures per working day since the pandemic driven mortgage breaks were announced. To put that in perspective, it took six years to do 100,000 restructures after the financial crisis. This time around that figure could be achieved in a little over two months, that is something to be commended.

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Dublin property prices 2012-2013

This post is a guest blog by a person who doesn’t want to be named.

The two year period between January 2012 and December 2013 was a remarkable period in the movement of the prices of houses and apartments in Dublin. The period started in January 2012 with house prices dropping by -21.7% from a year earlier while apartments dropped slightly less at -18.4% and yet by the end of the period.

In December 2013 house prices were rising by 15.3% annually with apartments rising further to 20.8% annually. Another feature of this period was the manner in which the prices moved, with house prices steadily slowing down their annual decline all through 2012 and from January 2013 to December 2013 having continuous positive increases in annual prices.

However apartment prices showed a lot more volatility over the period entering positive territory in February 2013 when compared to a year earlier but dipping back into negative figures for the next three months with the result that it was June before apartment prices showed increases on the same month a year …

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RTE Sean O’Rourke Show: Karl Deeter & Ronan Lyons on Central Bank rules

Last week on the Sean O’Rourke Show Karl Deeter and Ronan Lyons (Trinity College & Daft.ie) had a good robust debate about lending rules and whether restrictions were good or bad. This week in light of the actual changes that occurred they had a second conversation on the outcomes.

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An unusual mortgage approval

That banks are lending enough is evidenced in gross lending contraction, that they simply ‘aren’t lending’ is factually incorrect.

We encounter all kinds of strange paths to homeownership with our clients and thought it might be worth showing a recent example which probably never would have made it through without a broker, branch banking typically run a mile from this type of case or don’t spot the angle.

In this instance we had a permanent worker with a child and no savings. This instantly has a few negatives, having children reduces your borrowing capacity and not having savings diminishes any hope left.

With this case in particular though, there were other aspects that swayed it. The client lived with a relative who was selling a property and moving in with a sibling, some of the profits were going to go towards helping our client make a purchase.

A gift alone normally won’t help you get a loan, you have to prove repayment capacity, some lenders will let the whole deposit come from a gift but you still …

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Every little helps (except when it means mortgages)

Tesco won’t be offering mortgages in Ireland despite rolling out a full host of financial services, this is also a departure from the UK proposition in which they are included, something we covered nearly four years ago.

Bothered? Maybe not, but you should be because any market with a functional duopoly is unhealthy, we saw for instance how AIB increased their rates and for 2 or 3 hours their prices were the same as BOI, but then BOI co-incidentally increased their rates by 25 basis points on the same day so the pricing difference occurred once again.

Why would Tesco decide not to enter the Irish market? They claim it’s regulation, one doesn’t need a Professional Diploma in Compliance to realise that much of our regulation is identical to the UK and in foundation is primarily based upon it, …

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Loan refusal statistics: what do they mean?

There are two sets of statistics floating around; on one hand you have the banks who claim that they are lending and also that the demand for credit simply isn’t there – a belief further expounded by John Trethowan. Then on the other hand you have the likes of PIBA who counter claim that 80% of applications are being refused.

So it is important to break down the vital components. First of all, the debate often centres around Small Medium Enterprise (SME) lending; even if demand for that type of credit isn’t there it doesn’t automatically translate into a reduced demand for mortgages. The point being that we can’t compare SME loans/business loan demand to that for mortgage credit.

Secondly is ‘what constitutes a refusal’, and this is where common sense diverges. Even the bank accept that if you seek €200,000 and are only offered €100,000 that it is a loan not fit for purpose, this even goes …

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