Daft Property - Irish Property News

AFFORDABLE housing schemes will be scrapped under new plans to encourage people to rent, instead of purchase, their home. Housing Minister Willie Penrose will today announce a major shift in housing policy. The State will no longer help middle-income earners to buy a property by subsidising the cost. Affordable homes were offered to first-time buyers who could not afford to purchase on the open market because prices were too high. Affordable homes were different from social housing, where a local authority provided a house and the tenant paid rent. Under the affordable scheme, owners had to live in the property and could earn up to €60,000 a year. Subsidies of up to 40pc of the asking price were on offer, and in the region of 30,000 affordable homes were sold since the early 1990s. However, the new housing policy says that "over-stimulation" of the housing market was a key factor in the economic downturn, and that people chose to buy homes "on the basis of ...