Daft Property - Irish Property News

Property investor... The Government’s €500 million plan to provide mortgages to those turned down by the banks is a failure.... A PLAN, sponsored by the Government, to make it easier for first-time buyers to get mortgages has flopped because of stringent qualifying conditions and needless bureaucracy. Towards the end of 2008, when the mortgage market began to dry up because of the banking crisis, the Department of the Environment was portrayed as rushing to the rescue of young workers unable to get funding from the banks and building societies. The €500 million mortgage plan announced by Minister for the Environment John Gormley was seen as a serious alternative for those anxious to get on the property ladder. The grand plan, promoted as the Home Choice Loan, has turned out to be a “No Choice Loan”. The difficulties in complying with the terms has meant that, almost 18 months after the launch of the scheme, only three people in the entire country have managed to draw down mortgages (ea...

29 property suicides leave State unmoved... Families torn apart by cash crisis Twenty-nine deaths by suicide can be directly linked to the turmoil in the construction and property sector but dozens more deaths among small investors, homeowners and construction industry workers linked to financial despair have gone unreported. David Mellon, of the Irish Property Council believes the human misery inflicted by the collapse in the property and construction industry is incalculable and the Government is doing nothing to protect the sanctity of the family home. He predicted that by the time the economy recovers, hundreds will have taken their own lives because they have been plunged into a financial abyss from which they can see no way out. "We are talking about people who invested in property, people who earned their livelihood from it in many forms; builders, plasterers, plumbers, developers and large and small investors. "They are now facing financial disaster, bankruptcy and de...