Daft Property - Irish Property News

Number of mortgages in arrears hits new peak of 14pc... ONE in seven mortgage holders is now in arrears, according to calculations by a leading ratings agency. Large numbers of these homeowners are understood to be avoiding getting into talks with their banks on restructuring their mortgages. Moody's also said house prices would fall another 20pc. The rating agency said its calculations show 14pc of residential mortgage holders are now in arrears, which works out at 107,000 households. This is a new peak, it said. Figures released by the Central Bank last month showed 10.2pc of mortgage holders were three months or more behind on their payments. "The steep decline in house prices since 2007 has placed the majority of borrowers deep into negative equity," it said. "Irish house prices have already fallen by 49.9pc between September 2007 and April 2012, and Moody's expects that house prices will fall a further 20pc from today's levels." Central Bank figu

Struggling families flock to care centre for meals... ENTIRE families are going to homeless centres for their dinner every evening. Before the recession, the Capuchin Day Centre for the homeless in Dublin would rarely have seen children coming through its doors -- but now up to 10 families a day are coming coming in to get fed. Many of the families are struggling to pay large mortgages taken out during the boom. They are worried about losing their homes and literally do not have enough money to put bread on the table, says Brother Kevin Crowley, who runs the shelter. He says that there are four times the amount of people arriving today compared with a few years ago. Some of those now seeking help are professionals such as engineers and architects who would have been earning a very good wage during the boom years. "It's not just homeless people who come to us, its anyone who is in need. We are getting lots of families with children coming in," he says. "

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

WELCOME TO THE HOUSE OF PAIN: The ECB headquarters in Frankfurt... What will the ECB rate rises mean to your mortgage? THE Independent Mortgage Advisers Federation (IMAF) has done the sums to show how much more you will pay for your mortgage if the ECB rate rises. The figures assume that the ECB rate increases by 0.5 per cent to 1.5 per cent by the end of this year -- and by another 1 per cent to 2.5 per cent next year. The figures also assume that lenders pass on the full extent of the ECB rate rises to standard variable customers. (ECB rate rises are automatically passed on to tracker customers.) €200,000 MORTGAGE €2,200 a year more If you've a 25-year standard variable mortgage of €200,000 with Permanent TSB, your mortgage repayments work out at €1,191 a month. If the ECB rate increases by 0.5 per cent, your monthly repayments will increase to €1,251 -- another €60 more a month, according to Michael Dowling of IMAF. If the ECB rate hits 2.5 per cent by the end of 2

Blow for homeowners as BoI to hike mortgage rate... BANK of Ireland will today reveal that it is increasing mortgage rates for thousands of hard-pressed homeowners. The move comes despite the European Central Bank (ECB) leaving its rates unchanged yesterday -- for the 11th month in a row. Homeowners who are vulnerable to rising mortgage rates are now being warned that they have seven days to act. Experts are advising new buyers -- as well as those who are coming off a fixed rate or are on a standard-variable rate -- that they should lock in now. Bank of Ireland (BoI) and its subsidiary, ICS -- which between them have one in four mortgages in the country -- are to announce that they are increasing their standard-variable rates for existing customers by 0.5pc. They are also raising fixed rates by up to 0.7pc for existing customers who want to fix, the Irish Independent has learned. The change in the standard-variable rates will add €80 a month to the repayments of someone on a €300,000 m