First-time buyers to be able to borrow four times their gross income as Central Bank changes mortgage rules https://jrnl.ie/5896584

43 comments

  3. It doesn’t state if this change came from the ECB or the Irish Central Bank.

    Either way i think it’s bonkers in today’s times. I do believe it will help a small % of people if house where actually affordable

    The problems are supply and a lack of government supply in Social and affordable projects.

    Prices are insane as it is, allowing people to just borrow more is a disaster without addressing the other factors first.

  5. Yet another change that will just increase the prices of existing houses instead of increasing the supply of properties available.

    Also lowering deposit required for a second home has just made buying rental properties easier. Just what the country needed

  8. god almighty. It’s becoming more and more transparent, isn’t it? The same house, same site, same everything… it will now cost 30% more than it did yesterday but that’s okay because you can lock yourself into debt until you’re 72 now!

    lads, when are we going to pull it all down and start over? this is sickening

    EDIT: Here’s a thought exercise for you folks. Imagine Ireland adopts the american privatised health insurance system. Overnight, huge numbers of people can’t afford medicine (the same medicine they had access to yesterday). Don’t worry, the government will help – they offer a new ‘health loan’ that you can take out to pay for your medical bills. Now you have access to the same medicine you had yesterday, but you are in debt for the rest of your life. Thank goodness for the government’s helping hand. Anyone with a ‘eh no actually this is worse than before’ position is met with ‘what are you suggesting, that people *not* be supported in affording their healthcare? Are you anti-poor people that you don’t want them to be able to afford healthcare? Are you suggesting only the wealthy deserve healthcare? That poor people should be left to die??’ What a monstrous thing to suggest. Now spot the difference.

  9. I think the second time buyers no longer needing a 20% deposit is getting downplayed – now less of a barrier for non-FTBs to sell and move home so a level playing field with FTBs.

  11. With inflation rising and the cost of supplies and labour etc then the extra .5 rise in lending will mostly be eaten up. In terms of purchasing power, it won’t make that much of a difference? Houses will become more expensive so maybe it won’t make any difference. Running to stand still.

  12. Huge supply shortage so I don’t really see the point of this other than having people locked into higher debt.

  14. I wonder when we’re going to do something other than one of: take this lying down or: emigrate. We’re allowing these crooks to continue doing this. As the saying goes: if nothing changes, nothing changes… bleak as fuck.

  16. The problem is building materials are expensive so building houses could halt. So unemployment rises supply constricts.

    Two choices

    Do something about materials costs like lower vat import duty.

    Or give more money to buyers so that prices rise.

    We’ve been told that houses are 7 percent over valued. It’s more like 15 percent.

    Now if you were looking at a 350k house you can probably afford 400k.

    When you see 92 percent mortgages you know we are in big trouble.

    Next you’ll see magic loans from the credit union that don’t count as house deposits but do count….

  19. What do you think – would there be any follow on change with mortgage protection? It’s required in Ireland unless wavier by the lender (which tbh is probably super rare).

    Other similar EU countries and the UK don’t require this in most settings for a draw down

  20. If i was cynical i’d think the timing is strange.

    The day after the eviction freeze is announced landlords get a guarantee that there’ll be more people bidding on that property when the freeze ends.

    Looks like a case of kicking the can down the road to me.

    Some people may find housing too expensive but the core issue is supply not an inability to secure finance.

  24. Well yes but there may well be a recession coming despite what they say. They’re doing this I guess because interest has gone up so they make more money but there may come a day when prices collapse.

  28. This is going to start forcing people’s hands to take out larger loans to compete on homes they can legally afford. If others start bidding with their newfound loan of 4x income then you’re probably going to join them if it’s the difference between buying an adequate home for your family and not.

  32. Tinfoil hat time… The movers and shakers are engineering a dead-cat-bounce in the property market to give them a chance to conduct a slowburn firesale before the ass inevitably falls out of the market.

  35. I still think the real issues still surrounds the ability for families to save for a deposit, speaking for myself in my late 30s, 2 kids and rent the constant increase in outgoings erode most of myself and my wife’s take home pay.

    Our rent is 1400 a month and have paid it now for 6+ years without issue, it would be a much bigger deal to people in my position if the banks leveraged this proof of ability to pay and reduced the deposit demands. Even more creative would be 100% mortgages with bank ownership until 20% of the original equity value has been repaid once certain criteria are met.

  36. Not going to fix much when the supply is still so bad. And with interest rates set to go up again, it’ll basically erase any benefit the loan limits give anyway.

    Honestly at this point, the only way out of the mess is for the government to set up its own building programme instead of relying on private companies to build the houses. Invest some of the surplus they were crowing about, and set a target of 10,000 houses a year for themselves. It’d be far cheaper for them to do it, since they won’t be taxing themselves, they already have access to land and could clearly navigate An Pleanala a lot easier than private companies, plus they’d be creating more jobs.

    Houses could be fairly standard 3br/2ba 100m2 jobs, priced reasonably, and offered ONLY to first time buyers with a 5% deposit. While they’re at it, throw a few apartment blocks up as well as rental units.

  37. Morons. Higher interest rate plus higher multiple compounds the monthly repayment. If anything it should have reduced in response to a rising interest rate.

  40. They should have reduced the required deposit down to 5% instead of the ridiculous 10% and 20% for first time and second time buyers.

    I can’t see how this helps anyone really if they are stuck in the rental trap and cannot afford the big deposit

  42. Why is the head guy of the central bank English? Can we not see what they are doing over there? If he is any good why isn’t he working in a bigger country?

  43. This is fantastic, my €865,000, five bedroom house in Clontarf may finally hit the Big ONE MILLION in 2023!!!! I’m going to have a wank to celebrate!!! God l love FG-FF! May they never ever lose Power.

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