Of course they are. I know people who have availed of the schemes and of course they were grateful for the extra cash, but it dosent take an economist to figure out that injecting money into the system isn’t going to magically fix it. There’s plenty of money in construction at the moment, the reason supply is limited is because we aren’t building enough.
And we aren’t building enough because of a lack of skilled labour and an absolutely ridiculous planning system where a single objector, who doesn’t even have to live in the area or have any genuine basis for objecting, can delay a major construction project by 12-18 months with just a one page letter and €220 appeal fee.
I know roughly half a dozen people who used this scheme and not one of them actually needed it. It’s quite the ridiculous situation.
Wasn’t that the original intention of those schemes in the first place? Make building houses more profitable so that more houses would be built? It was a roundabout way of bribing developers to work. It probably even worked for a while before the lack of skilled labor limited any further expansion of the construction sector.
If they had just been honest about it in the first place they could have pulled it once the prices had grown to the point where it was profitable to build without the schemes.
I’ll tell you one thing, for a 490k house we’ve just bought, I’m very glad we only needed a 19k deposit with htb instead of the 46k deposit.
People are handing over all of their current savings, all of their future disposable income and a large % of the tax money that could be otherwise be used to improve their children’s lives to developers and landlords. FG in particular have sat back and watched it happen for years, the party of the land owning class, the party of landlords, the biggest scam in modern Irish history.
Imagine that
The only quote I see doesn’t refer to the schemes at all, seems a bit sensationalist?
““The newly built side is benefiting from Government policies,” Mr MacCoille said.”
A commentator below has described how the first homes scheme did exactly what it was intended to do which is get people who can afford mortgage repayments out of long term rentals where they are struggling to save for a deposit at the same time.
I think the housing market would probably be in a better state if *all* government schemes were scrapped, including HAP, rent pressure zones and eviction bans.
Everything is fuelling the prices. Everything.
Prices of new builds are actually insane, I’ll be looking to buy hopefully at some stage this year and anytime anyone suggests looking at new builds I look at them as if they have 10 heads.
It’s almost like every time the government interferes with the housing market they make everything worse.
They make it impossible to buy homes that are not new. If you buy a home that has already been lived in, the only thing you can claim (and correct me if I’m wrong) is the vacant property house grant, and that’s only if it’s uninhabited for 2 years! These houses prices match the new builds that are newer and better situated, but if you want a nice countryside house like myself you’re essentially screwed.
The vast majority of people who can actually use the HTB don’t actually need it!
People who need the help can’t afford 500k houses anyways.
But there seems to be some misconception that the HTB was to help first time buyers. It’s not. It’s to bump house prices to make it more attractive for developers.
It should be scrapped!
Public Service Announcement: ‘Help-to-Buy’ schemes are, and always have been, developer grants by another name. Every minister who has ever introduced or extended them knew this full well.
They are a symptom of, not the cause of, rising house prices.
Thank you for your attention.
this is like saying if I through a rock off a bridge, it will fall downwards.
As intended
Help to buy scheme is not for solo buyers. For me to avail of that scheme I need to get a minimum 70% mortgage for a new build. The prices in my area are 315k minimum, for a 3 bed semi detached, meaning I would have to earn 55k +, take a full mortgage of over 220k and have a deposit of a minimum 65k, with the max 30k(highly unlikely I, as a solo, would have reached this over the last 4 yrs) from help to buy. Why can’t they make a scheme for solo buyers? It’s so difficult, almost hopeless.
First home will give you up to 30% of a house so it might be a possibility to help people but again you have to get a max. Mortgage and then have this 30% with a service charge after 5 Years, it will overload people with debt, more so people with 1 income who don’t have a 2nd income to fall back on
Supply. We are still massively under supplied. Until they clear that then you can’t make a comment on this imo.
It’s not a demand side problem like.
I got this scheme, bought a new build in Naas, can 100% confirm however that of the 10 sites we viewed they had priced almost every house at 400k. It was comically obvious this was done because this was the limit for the help to buy in kildare, if the limit was 450 they would have charged 450k. It helped me get a new build but its a stupid scheme
I’d like a deeper analysis on how exactly it’s the Help to Buy scheme that’s causing this and not a general rise in house prices. Second hand houses saw a similar rise in prices as this article itself points out – you can’t use help to buy for that. If house prices in general are rising, of course contractors are going to increase the price of new builds as well.
I’m a self builder and I qualify for both,(roughly 55k) and they are a massive help to me. 55k is over double the deposit I saved, and that took me 2yrs.
Can someone answer me this.
First time help to buy goes up to 300K.
Its next to impossible to get a 300K 3bed new build in places like Cork and Dublin.
Outside of the cities, where are people buying with htb? Random village town 2 hours away from civilization? Donegal?
Seriously, Im confused
Lack of housing is fuelling rising prices.
Government policies of criminalisation of drug sale support violence and gangs.
25 comments
To the surprise of absolutely noone
Of course they are. I know people who have availed of the schemes and of course they were grateful for the extra cash, but it dosent take an economist to figure out that injecting money into the system isn’t going to magically fix it. There’s plenty of money in construction at the moment, the reason supply is limited is because we aren’t building enough.
And we aren’t building enough because of a lack of skilled labour and an absolutely ridiculous planning system where a single objector, who doesn’t even have to live in the area or have any genuine basis for objecting, can delay a major construction project by 12-18 months with just a one page letter and €220 appeal fee.
I know roughly half a dozen people who used this scheme and not one of them actually needed it. It’s quite the ridiculous situation.
Wasn’t that the original intention of those schemes in the first place? Make building houses more profitable so that more houses would be built? It was a roundabout way of bribing developers to work. It probably even worked for a while before the lack of skilled labor limited any further expansion of the construction sector.
If they had just been honest about it in the first place they could have pulled it once the prices had grown to the point where it was profitable to build without the schemes.
I’ll tell you one thing, for a 490k house we’ve just bought, I’m very glad we only needed a 19k deposit with htb instead of the 46k deposit.
People are handing over all of their current savings, all of their future disposable income and a large % of the tax money that could be otherwise be used to improve their children’s lives to developers and landlords. FG in particular have sat back and watched it happen for years, the party of the land owning class, the party of landlords, the biggest scam in modern Irish history.
Imagine that
The only quote I see doesn’t refer to the schemes at all, seems a bit sensationalist?
““The newly built side is benefiting from Government policies,” Mr MacCoille said.”
A commentator below has described how the first homes scheme did exactly what it was intended to do which is get people who can afford mortgage repayments out of long term rentals where they are struggling to save for a deposit at the same time.
I think the housing market would probably be in a better state if *all* government schemes were scrapped, including HAP, rent pressure zones and eviction bans.
Everything is fuelling the prices. Everything.
Prices of new builds are actually insane, I’ll be looking to buy hopefully at some stage this year and anytime anyone suggests looking at new builds I look at them as if they have 10 heads.
It’s almost like every time the government interferes with the housing market they make everything worse.
They make it impossible to buy homes that are not new. If you buy a home that has already been lived in, the only thing you can claim (and correct me if I’m wrong) is the vacant property house grant, and that’s only if it’s uninhabited for 2 years! These houses prices match the new builds that are newer and better situated, but if you want a nice countryside house like myself you’re essentially screwed.
The vast majority of people who can actually use the HTB don’t actually need it!
People who need the help can’t afford 500k houses anyways.
But there seems to be some misconception that the HTB was to help first time buyers. It’s not. It’s to bump house prices to make it more attractive for developers.
It should be scrapped!
Public Service Announcement: ‘Help-to-Buy’ schemes are, and always have been, developer grants by another name. Every minister who has ever introduced or extended them knew this full well.
They are a symptom of, not the cause of, rising house prices.
Thank you for your attention.
this is like saying if I through a rock off a bridge, it will fall downwards.
As intended
Help to buy scheme is not for solo buyers. For me to avail of that scheme I need to get a minimum 70% mortgage for a new build. The prices in my area are 315k minimum, for a 3 bed semi detached, meaning I would have to earn 55k +, take a full mortgage of over 220k and have a deposit of a minimum 65k, with the max 30k(highly unlikely I, as a solo, would have reached this over the last 4 yrs) from help to buy. Why can’t they make a scheme for solo buyers? It’s so difficult, almost hopeless.
First home will give you up to 30% of a house so it might be a possibility to help people but again you have to get a max. Mortgage and then have this 30% with a service charge after 5 Years, it will overload people with debt, more so people with 1 income who don’t have a 2nd income to fall back on
Supply. We are still massively under supplied. Until they clear that then you can’t make a comment on this imo.
It’s not a demand side problem like.
I got this scheme, bought a new build in Naas, can 100% confirm however that of the 10 sites we viewed they had priced almost every house at 400k. It was comically obvious this was done because this was the limit for the help to buy in kildare, if the limit was 450 they would have charged 450k. It helped me get a new build but its a stupid scheme
I’d like a deeper analysis on how exactly it’s the Help to Buy scheme that’s causing this and not a general rise in house prices. Second hand houses saw a similar rise in prices as this article itself points out – you can’t use help to buy for that. If house prices in general are rising, of course contractors are going to increase the price of new builds as well.
I’m a self builder and I qualify for both,(roughly 55k) and they are a massive help to me. 55k is over double the deposit I saved, and that took me 2yrs.
Can someone answer me this.
First time help to buy goes up to 300K.
Its next to impossible to get a 300K 3bed new build in places like Cork and Dublin.
Outside of the cities, where are people buying with htb? Random village town 2 hours away from civilization? Donegal?
Seriously, Im confused
Lack of housing is fuelling rising prices.
Government policies of criminalisation of drug sale support violence and gangs.