View Larger Map

Boom buyers seethe as units now three for price of one

HOUSEHUNTERS in a busy commuter town can now get a two-bedroom apartment for just €110,000 -- a third of the original asking price.
It's a case of 'three for the price of one' at the exclusive Capella Court apartments in Newbridge, Co Kildare.
When the gated development first opened in 2007 -- buyers forked out prices starting at €322,000.
But now they will be seething at the prospect that newcomers can buy three apartments for the money they handed over at the height of the boom.
Residents at Capella Court who bought in 2007 will be paying three times the amount in monthly mortgage repayments of their new neighbours for apartments of the same size and specifications.
The attractive price tag comes as receivers have been appointed to re-launch the apartments.
Dwellings are finished inside and lighting, footpaths and landscaping are in place. The two-bedroom apartments are set to attract investors, with average rents in the capital's commuter belt at €733, according to the latest property survey by popular website Daft.

The Indo

One third of mortgage holders face negative equity by end 2010

Almost 200,000 households will be in negative equity by the end of next year, representing a third of all mortgages, according to new figures.

The estimates from the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) will increase pressure on the government and the banks to introduce schemes to help those struggling to meet mortgage repayments due to unemployment or falling incomes.
The ESRI estimates that 116,000 households are already in negative equity, where the value of their outstanding mortgage is greater than the value of their property. These are mainly people who bought houses since 2003 with high loans compared with the value of the property.
ESRI economist David Duffy predicted that the total would rise to 196,000 by the end of next year, as house prices continued to fall. Duffy based his calculations on main mortgages and said that top-up mortgages and remortgages may mean the figure would be even higher.
More than half the borrowers in negative equity by the end of next year - more than 100,000 - will have loans which are more than 10 per cent higher than the value of their home, Duffy calculated. The majority of these will be first-time buyers.

Sunday Business Post

Receiver sells apartments in Bray

Prices have been cut to an average €225,000 for the apartments and to €295,000-€299,500 for the duplexes: a year-and-a-half ago prices started at €350,000 and that was after a 20 per cent price cut following a 2007 launch. Currently, the two-bed show unit costs €235,000 and the three-bed show unit €315,000. There is one smaller two-bedroom apartment for sale for €195,000.

The units are all a good size – the two-beds are 72.2sq m (783sq ft), the duplexes 86.3-104sq m (929-1,119sq ft) – and finished to a high standard.

Bathrooms have granite ledges behind sinks and have slate-coloured porcelain tiles on floors. Nolan’s walnut or cream gloss fitted kitchens – separate from the livingroom/diningroom area – come as standard. Bedrooms have good-sized fitted wardrobes; livingrooms are wired for surroundsound.

The Irish Times

Trapped in a negative equity nightmare

When I bought my new home in May 2008, I knew exactly what I wanted. A two-bed apartment designed for modern living with a roof garden and outdoor space with great views of the city for holding summer barbeques on balmy evenings. When I saw just this, it accelerated my impulse to buy immediately, even though the market was softening.

The two-bed showroom unit apartment on the fifth floor wasn't exactly affordable, considering I was buying alone, but with its sleek Scandinavian furniture and skyline views I was prepared to stretch my cash limits and fork out the €525,000 sum required.

Printed in bold on the pastel-coloured brochure at the launch of the complex was the slogan: "contemporary tailored apartment living that won't cost you the shirt on your back". Truth is, it's costing me that and a hell of a lot more.

I now see my apartment devalue massively on a daily basis. Hooke & MacDonald have said 40 per cent is the typical price drop for new houses and apartments in Dublin. Trapped by negative equity, if I did decide to move, I would stand to make a massive loss on my investment. It has been reported that "those who bought a house in 2007 will have to wait until 2030 before they move out of negative equity".

The Sindo

HINDSIGHT IS a wonderful thing. Looking back at the prices people paid for Irish property during the boom, it’s easy to see how unsustainable they were.

However at the time, despite warnings from everyone from the Central Bank to the Economist magazine that Ireland’s property market was a bubble which had to burst, banks and consumers ignored the advice and ploughed money into property, propping up prices until the inevitable collapse during 2008.

Now, latest estimates suggest that as many as 340,000 home owners, or one in five homes, are stuck in negative equity and prices are still sliding.

If this is the case, then people who purchased property as far back as 2003 with loan-to-values (LTVs) of more than 80 per cent, will discover that they owe more to the bank than what their house is worth.

For example, at the peak of the market two-bed apartments at Wyckham Point in Dundrum, Dublin were selling at €525,000.

Now however, prices have slid back by over a third to €339,000, which means that someone who bought during the boom on a 92 per cent mortgage is stuck in negative equity of about €144,000, or have a loan-to-value (LTV) of 142 per cent. If the property was financed with a loan of 65 per cent of the purchase price, then the owner is just about in the black.

And it looks like negative equity is here for some time. According to the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), those who bought a house in 2003 will have to wait another four years before they move out of negative equity, while those who bought close to the peak in 2007 will have to wait until 2030.

The Irish Times

We’re splitting – but can’t sell apartment

Q We are splitting up and have to sell our apartment. It has been on the market for eight months with no interest. The estate agent says we must drop our price if we are to have any chance of selling but if we drop to the price he suggests we won’t cover the mortgage (shortfall of €20,000). Do lenders really come after people for this small amount? This has to be happening to other people so what do they do in this stalemate?

A The first thing is that while the agent has suggested a new asking price, that doesn’t in any way guarantee a sale or that you will even get that amount – so your shortfall could be greater than €20,000. At a new lower valuation, might one of you be able to buy the other out? Could you rent it out? What’s been happening in the eight months that your place has been for sale? Are you both still living there? Could one of you stay and get a tenant in to part-pay the mortgage? Or might it be time for you to cut your ties with this property and your ex and be prepared to sell at a lower price and take out a loan (or eat into your savings) and pay off the outstanding mortgage amount. And yes, if you don’t pay back a mortgage in full you can expect the lender to come looking for the outstanding balance no matter how relatively small it is. Not paying it will, at the least, ruin your credit rating for seven years, which could stop you moving on with your life in all sorts of ways.

The Irish Times

140,000 homeowners 'have fallen into negative equity

AT LEAST 140,000 homeowners have fallen into negative equity, with this figure expected to rise to 200,000 by the end of next year, it was warned last night.
Jim Power, chief economist with Friends First, said: "I reckon the majority of first-time buyers who bought into the market over the last three years are in negative equity."
Analysing the gains made up to the peak of the housing boom, and the losses since, Mr Power said negative equity was affecting "at least 140,000 people and that's rising by the day".
He warned that, in terms of the recession, "we haven't seen anything yet" and predicted the numbers in negative equity could reach 200,000 by the end of 2009.
Latest Census figures show there were 570,000 residential mortgage holders in 2006, with tens of thousands of new mortgages taken out since.
So the continuing decline in house prices means that one in three mortgage holders are likely find themselves trapped in a home worth less than the loan they took out to pay for it.
With €125bn owed on Irish mortgages, homeowners facing rising debts will be desperate for another European Central Bank interest rate cut, which could come on Thursday.
According to Mr Power: "Negative equity becomes a serious problem if you lose your job. It doesn't matter where house prices are or where interest rates are when you're faced with having to sell your property in a situation like that.

The Indo

170,000 homeowners facing negative equity

MORE than half of those who climbed onto the property ladder between 2005 and 2007 will fall into negative equity by the end of next year if house prices continue to drop, according to new research.
Dermot O’Leary, chief economist at Goodbody Stockbrokers, expects by the end of 2009 house prices will have fallen 30% from their peak in February 2007.
This would leave some 170,000 with mortgages worth more than the value of their homes, with those who bought between spring 2006 and summer 2007 at greatest risk.
A sharp slowdown in property sales has made it difficult to gauge the scale of the slump, but O’Leary believes values are already down 20%. Sherry FitzGerald, the estate agency, said prices have dropped by 17% nationally since June 2006, and by more than 23% in Dublin.
Negative equity is a big problem for borrowers who want to move home or who fall into mortgage arrears, because they would be forced to sell at a loss.
“It’s an issue if you’re no longer able to pay the mortgage because you can’t afford to sell,” said O’Leary. “It’s a problem for those who are losing their jobs and it’s going to become a bigger problem as unemployment rises.”
More than 6% of the workforce is already unemployed and O’Leary expects this will grow to 8% next year.
Those who borrowed most or all of the prices of their homes are the most exposed.
One in three first-timers used 100% mortgages to get on the ladder in 2006, according to the Department of the Environment. This dropped to 26% last year as a slowing market caused banks to restrict availability of these loans. Lenders have now abandoned them completely.

Sunday Times

Fear of negative equity haunts owners

Negative equity is not just a problem for homeowners who want to sell their homes: borrowers may also find themselves unable to shop around for better deals, writes Caroline Madden

SOME SAY it's purely a theoretical problem unless you have to sell your home, while others have compared it to burning €50,000 in cash in your back garden. So is negative equity worth losing sleep over or has the issue been blown out of proportion?

Negative equity occurs when a mortgage is greater than the value of a property. As property prices have fallen nationally by 12.1 per cent since February 2007 - at least according to the Permanent TSB/ESRI house price index which measures mortgage drawdowns - borrowers who took out high loan-to-value mortgages and in particular 100 per cent mortgages and bought at the peak have been pushed into negative equity.

In the summer of 2005, First Active broke new ground with the introduction of the first 100 per cent mortgage in the State - making it possible for first-time buyers to get onto the property ladder without scrimping and saving for a deposit.

Other lenders quickly followed suit with EBS, First Active, Ulster Bank, Permanent TSB and Bank of Scotland soon offering similar products. However, in recent months lenders have effectively withdrawn 100 per cent mortgages from the market.

It is difficult to pin down exactly how many of these loans were taken out, as no official cumulative figures have been collated and the banks have been understandably coy on the subject, but it is estimated that one-third of all first-time buyers in 2006 opted for 100 per cent finance, which equates to 12,350 home loans.

In 2007, 5.5 per cent of loans provided were 100 per cent mortgages, which amounts to almost 8,700 mortgages. So, at a conservative estimate, 21,050 homeowners have 100 per cent mortgages and are therefore extremely vulnerable to negative equity.

Of course it's not just those who borrowed the full price of their home who are at risk. Given the magnitude of the recent fall in property prices, anyone with a high loan-to-value mortgage is in the danger zone. According to Davy Stockbrokers, 69 per cent of first-time buyers in 2006, which equates to roughly 25,570 mortgages, had a loan-to-value ratio of more than 90 per cent.

Davy has predicted that 40,000 first-time buyers would face an average paper loss of €18,200 if house prices fall by 10 per cent this year. Prices have already fallen by 5 per cent in the first half of the year according to the Permanent TSB/ESRI figures and anyone in the market will tell you that where properties are selling at all the fall is far greater.

The Irish Times

New homeowners caught in negative-equity loan trap

THOUSANDS of first-time buyers are being forced to pay out sky-high mortgage rates because negative equity has trapped them with their current lender.

The new buyers, who purchased their houses with 100pc mortgages, are now unable to switch to a cheaper lender because they have no equity built up in their homes.

They have been hit by a double whammy -- stuck with high repayments and a house worth less than the price they paid.

Those who took out 100pc mortgages have probably seen about €50,000 each wiped off the value of their homes.

The relentless fall in house prices since the start of 2007 has resulted in many of these people finding themselves in negative equity. This is where the value of the mortgage is greater than the value of the property.

As many as 40,0000 new buyers could be in negative equity, according to recent calculations by stockbroking firm Davy. This calculation was based on first-time buyer house prices falling by 10pc in the past year. In the past year alone, first-time buyer houses have fallen by 9.4pc.

The Indo

Clonattin Village -€90K

Clonattin Village

Clonard Village -€75K

Clonard Village

Negative equity hits 250,000 - and there is worse to come

After months of gloomy forecasts, analysts have finally confirmed the news that homeowners had been dreading for months: that large numbers of British householders have slipped into negative equity.

According to the investment bank Citigroup, a quarter of a million of them now owe more than their properties are worth since house prices started to drop at the end of last year.

Citigroup said prices had dipped by 7 per cent since the autumn and the bank's chief UK economist, Michael Saunders, yesterday warned that house prices could fall by 15 per cent or more by the end of 2009. Such a drop would leave at least a million homeowners in negative equity.

The Guardian

Housing market bad on both sides of coin

"First-time buyers have been hit and hit hard by the credit crunch, and so far our Government has done nothing to help them or intervene in the market," said Labour's finance spokeswoman Joan Burton.

"Cowen himself killed the property market stone dead by failing to act on stamp duty in December 2006 and now he and his Government are on auto-pilot," said Labour's deputy leader.

For mortgage holders, the news of house-price collapses means they are waking up this morning in negative equity. People are carrying mortgages on properties worth less than their borrowings, but many of those are in for the long haul and will survive the current crisis.

But at the extreme end of the collapsed housing sector is the increasing number of repossession orders being made to the High Court by financial institutions.

Last week alone saw a number of leading financial institutions, such as AIB and Bank of Ireland, take their place on the list beside the sub-prime lenders seeking to repossess properties from payment defaulters. Sub-prime lenders, which provide loans and mortgages to those with chequered credit histories, filled the lists at the courts last week. Two lenders -- Start mortgages and GE Capital -- accounted for most of the cases.

Worryingly, the number of possession applications this year remains at the same high level of 2007, which had jumped 50 per cent on 2006, showing the drastic impact of what happens when things go wrong.

Despite the claim by the Financial Regulator Pat Neary that relying on repossessions is the "final option", Dermot O'Leary of Goodbody Stockbrokers said that there was no doubt that throughout this year, consumers would see house repossessions increase. "They are the byproduct of a slowdown, and while they have been at a historic low, there is no doubt we will see the number of housing repossessions rise as the slowdown takes hold," he said.

In the face of the increasing number of banks taking back properties, the need now arises for establishing a State- backed mortgage relief fund beyond the current system set in place by the Department of Social Welfare.

Such a fund to help those remain in their homes is surely more humane than booting people out on the street. Two factors will continue to keep the house market depressed throughout this year and into 2009.

Firstly, credit is far less available than it was 12 or 24 months ago. Banks across the board have tightened up on their lending criteria, with the aforementioned death of 100 per cent mortgages.

Borrowers seeking mortgages have had to resort to saving deposits, forcing many to sit by and watch house prices tumble without being able to do anything about it.

Secondly, the ECB is now highly unlikely to reduce interest rates in 2008, despite previous indications that such a drop might happen. That means the squeeze on already stretched mortgage holders is not about to subside until sometime next year.

The Sindo

Through the floor

AS HOUSE prices in America continue their rapid descent, market-watchers are having to cast back ever further for gloomy comparisons. The latest S&P/Case-Shiller national house-price index, published this week, showed a slump of 14.1% in the year to the first quarter, the worst since the index began 20 years ago. Now Robert Shiller, an economist at Yale University and co-inventor of the index, has compiled a version that stretches back over a century. This shows that the latest fall in nominal prices is already much bigger than the 10.5% drop in 1932, the worst point of the Depression. And things are even worse than they look. In the deflationary 1930s house prices declined less in real terms. Today inflation is running at a brisk pace, so property prices have fallen by a staggering 18% in real terms over the past year.

The Economist

Up to 40,000 Irish first-time house buyers face negative equity

Up to 40,000 Irish first-time house buyers who bought properties with 100 per cent no deposit mortgages will face an average paper loss of €18,200 each, if house prices fall 10 per cent this year, according to research by Davy Stockbrokers.

Davy says in its weekly market comment report that a 10 per cent drop in house prices would lead to negative equity – where a mortgage loan is higher than the value of a property – to the value of €728 million, or 0.5 per cent of residential mortgages.

It is forecasting a 12 per cent decline in house prices this year but said first-time buyer house prices were falling at a faster rate.

A 10 per cent drop in house prices would leave 40,000 first-time buyers in negative equity by the end of this year, Davy said.

In 2006, 36 per cent of mortgages to first-time buyers were 100 per cent home loans, while 69 per cent had a loan-to-value (LTV) ratio of more than 90 per cent.

Davy said a fall in house prices ranging from 5 to 15 per cent would leave between 22,000 and 55,000 first-time buyers in negative equity.

Davy analyst Stephen Lyons, said falling house prices and rising negative equity had personal rather than financial consequences. “If a person’s job is lost, that would be a big concern but unemployment is not on the same par as in the UK in the early 1990s when there was negative equity.”

Lyons said first-time buyers might change their plans to sell so as to avoid making a loss. “I don’t think anyone will want to realise the loss. I think people will sit and hold on to their property, and hope that the capital appreciation will come back so those who had intended to stay in a property for three to four years will probably stay for longer,” he said.

Finfacts.ie

Fall in US house prices heralds problems for all

Worriers are spoilt for choice at present. But there is probably nothing investors should worry about more than the future for US house prices. This applies even for those who live nowhere near the US.

The US housing market is wildly out of whack, with a huge overhang of 4.55m unsold houses. Data on Friday showed this backlog at a record level, which would take more than 11 months to clear if sold at a normal pace.

The median house price, according to government figures, is down 8 per cent from a year ago. The S&P Case-Shiller index, based on 20 large cities, suggests the problem is worse than this, with prices down 15 per cent in nominal terms since the peak in 2006.

There are various ways in which the market could return into balance. But what is most important is how prices adjust.

This may seem debatable. After all, lower prices should mean that more people can afford their own home. Another way to bring the market into balance, a slowdown in construction, would have nasty economic consequences of its own.

But prices are more important. This is firstly because of their impact on the economy. There is a debate over what economists call the “wealth effect” – the tendency of homeowners to spend more when they feel wealthier due to their extra wealth on paper. But when prices were going up, this effect looked substantial.

The dramatic rise in real house prices coincided with an epic collapse in US savings, as shown in the graphic. It reached the point where the savings rate became negative, so that Americans spent more than they earned.

It follows that the risk of a negative wealth effect is now quite severe. Consumer confidence surveys, showing sharp falls in recent months, confirm this.

The Financial Times

Hampton Lodge -€120K

ACCA boss suggests government should form state bankruptcy body

The government should set up a high-level group to deal with the rise in bankruptcies caused by the global credit crunch, according to the head of one of country’s largest accountancy bodies.
Brendan Foster,the newpresident of ACCA Ireland, said the current shortage of bank finance was leading to a significant increase in personal debt for individuals who had provided personal guarantees on loans. Foster said many of these people had counted on the market ‘‘going the right way’’, andwere now facing major financial difficulties.
‘‘Many of these individuals will face financial ruin when the dust settles and the banks pursue these personal obligations.
‘‘The consequence is judgments and loss of credit worthiness or worse, bankruptcy,” said Foster, a founding partner of FosterMcAteer accountants.

Speaking after his election to the post of ACCA president this weekend, Foster said that, while the government was proposing radical changes to corporate insolvency, there were no provisions or proposals to deal with personal debt.

He said the government should set up a review group made up of representatives of the business community and financial institutions, to consider practical means of dealing with this issue.

‘‘Unlike in Britain, there is no practical solution available to assist individuals to deal with these situations.

The Sunday Business Post