Daft Property - Irish Property News

Record 70,000 now behind on mortgage payments... MORE borrowers will be pushed into arrears on their mortgage payments because of rising unemployment, a ratings agency predicted yesterday as new figures show the number in trouble surged to 68,248 in July. That figure represents an increase of 12,485 in the numbers who are behind by three months or more on their mortgage payments when compared with last April. Overall, almost 9pc of homeowners are now in arrears. Ratings agency Moody's said it expected more borrowers to be pushed into arrears as jobless numbers increase. Moody's figures tend to be more up to date that those of the Central Bank which last month said arrears had risen to 7.2pc in June, leaving 55,763 homeowners three months or more in arrears. The Moody's figures imply that 22,231 have not paid their mortgage for a year or more, calculations based on their statistics show. These homeowners are at serious risk of losing their homes, home-loan experts

Mortgage forgiveness 'would cost €6bn'... A debt forgiveness scheme to relieve homeowners in mortgage distress would cost “in the region of €5-€6 billion”, UCD professor of economics Morgan Kelly has said. In a keynote address to the Irish Society of New Economists in Dublin yesterday, Prof Kelly delivered what he described as some “good news”. “We are talking sums in the region of €5 billion to €6 billion which would be necessary to spend on mortgage forgiveness, which by our standards are not very large,” he said. “This sum to sort out tens of thousands of people with big problems does not seem enormous.” Prof Kelly, who has been praised for forecasting the property crash, has also provoked sharp criticism from some commentators for his analysis of the recession. “The good news is that if you leave investment mortgages out [of total mortgages owed], which are largely the banks’ problem, and look at mortgages people have on their own houses, there are about €55 bil

More than 60,000 homeowners fall 90 days behind on repayments... THE number of homeowners who are three months or more behind on their mortgage repayments has jumped to 60,000. Ratings agency Moody's released statistics yesterday showing 7.62pc of the home loans that have been sold off to investors are now 90 days or more in arrears. If this figure is applied across the entire 782,427 mortgages in the market, it means just short of 60,000 homeowners are now three or more months behind on their repayments. Figures from the Central Bank last month put the number of homeowners in arrears in the three months to March at just shy of 50,000, or 6.3pc of all mortgages. Now Moody's has produced figures for April showing the percentage in arrears has gone up from 6.65pc in February. This means an additional 8,000 mortgage holders fell behind on their payments between February and April. However, the Central Bank pointed out that the number of repossessions remained low at

Pressure on State to stop repossession of homes... There is a "substantial" number of new mortgage holders who should never have been approved for the amount of money they borrowed and repossession orders should not be granted to their lenders, proposals to Finance Minister Brian Lenihan and the Oireachtas committee have urged. A group, whose aim is finding a way to assist thousands of families who face the "very real threat" of losing their homes because of mortgage arrears, said the terms of loans should be amended to what the borrower can afford. The Prevention of Family Home Repossession Group has made submissions to Mr Lenihan and the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance and Public Service on a variety of measures to deal with the problem. They have also warned that many families will find themselves in a poverty trap with a deteriorating economy, spiralling unemployment and the prospect of interest rate rises . "This has the potential to lead to catastro

25,000 families now face losing their homes FEAR: No more breathing space on mortgages... UP TO 25,000 home owners face the chilling prospect of having their homes repossessed because they have fallen significantly behind on mortgage repayments. Irish Life & Permanent (IL&P), which has a 25pc share of the home mortgage market, has confirmed that 6,122 loans are now three months or more in arrears and it is estimated that up to another 20,000 mortgage holders with other lending institutions are in a similar position. Under the State bailout arrangement, banks had agreed to give all mortgage customers one year's breathing space before repossessing. But, for many, that deadline is now imminent. New legal orders coming in to effect on October 1 will make it easier for District Courts to grant uncontested repossessions, which is likely to increase the number of homes being taken over by banks. Under the same act, contested repossession cases will be heard in the Circuit Court ra