Daft Property - Irish Property News

Thousands at risk of rate hikes as AIB bars mortgage switchers... THOUSANDS of homeowners are effectively trapped with their existing lenders after the biggest bank in the country, AIB, admitted yesterday that it no longer accepts mortgage switchers. Just two lenders will now accept switchers, leaving thousands of homeowners trapped and vulnerable to being hit with higher mortgage rates. The AIB move is a huge blow to mortgage holders who are with Permanent TSB as it has increased its mortgage rates twice in the past six months, and those with Halifax, which is closing its retail operations here. AIB has the lowest home-loan rates in the market, with a standard variable rate of as low as 2.25pc and a three-year fixed rate of 3.19pc. In comparison, Bank of Scotland (Ireland)/Halifax has a three-year fixed rate of 7.25pc. Permanent TSB shocked homeowners this month when it pushed up its standard variable rate for existing customers by 0.5pc. Other lenders are now expected to follow the m

It's time to shout 'stop' -- NAMA is grand larceny... The land has reverted to the price you'd get from a farmer for putting a donkey out to graze on it For the past year, this column has been warning of a "triple lock" in the Irish banking system, which would financially incarcerate the Irish people for a generation. The triple lock would solder the people to the banking system in a suffocating embrace forcing us to borrow from tomorrow to pay for yesterday and, in the process, destroy the opportunities of today. Now with the Government upping its stake in Bank of Ireland, this prediction -- regretfully -- is coming to pass. The worst thing is that it doesn't have to be like this. The latest news that some development land in Athlone valued in the boom at €31m is now worth only €600,000 has truly terrifying implications for all of us, because it means NAMA will bankrupt us, and the triple lock implies that we can't sever the fortunes of the people fro

Not a single new home registered by Premier in January... THE private housing market could be in danger of grinding to a complete halt with one of the two home-registration firms in the country not registering a single house in January. The Irish Independent has learned that Premier Guarantee did not register a single housing unit in January, with its larger rival Homebond only registering 149 houses, including just 24 in Dublin. At the peak of the property market in 2006, Homebond was registering 6,122 houses a month or about 72,000 in a full year. Premier, the smaller of the two registration services, was registering about 2,117 houses per month, or almost 25,000 per annum. Of the 149 houses registered with Homebond in January, 62 were in Cork, 16 in Kildare and 24 in Dublin. In most of the other counties there were less than three houses registered, with many counties only registering a single house. One of the few things propping up the housing market now is one-off housing which o

Devastating 'pyrite epidemic' hits 20,000 newly built houses... UP to 20,000 homeowners are facing the devastating "pyrite problem" which is destroying recently built houses. The Irish Independent has learned that this many claims for pyrite-related damage, such as cracked floors and walls, have been made to the builders' insurance company HomeBond -- which may not have enough funds to cover the cost of all the claims. Its cash reserves have dropped from €50m in 2007 to €26m, according to its latest accounts, due to declining stock market returns. This means it would only be able to pay around €1,250 per household. The average cost of removing the pyrite from a house and repairing the damage is between €50,000 and €70,000. HomeBond only covers a portion of the cost if the builder is liquidated or unable to pay for all the repairs -- so families are facing potentially huge bills to repair their homes. The claims against HomeBond are separate to a landmark case pres

Mortgage lending at lowest level since records began... MORTGAGE lending plunged last year to the lowest level since records began in 2005, as borrowing by investors and those seeking to trade up plummeted. Just €8.08bn of mortgage loans were issued in 2009, a 65pc drop on the previous year, the Irish Banking Federation said yesterday. The number of loans made fell 58.5pc to 45,818. “The data illustrate how difficult 2009 was for the mortgage market,” Irish Banking Federation boss Pat Farrell said. “The general economic situation, consumer confidence, the unsold housing stock and house-price movements will be among the factors to influence market activity in 2010.” Despite the plunge, first-time buyers and people moving house still only accounted for two-thirds of mortgage lending in the final quarter of 2009. Investors and those seeking socalled top-ups or remortgages accounted for the remainder. The market remains so moribund that there are more people borrowing money to “top up” the

Names of top 10 borrowers in first wave of Nama transfers revealed... ANGLO IRISH Bank will transfer close to €10 billion in loans into the National Asset Management Agency (Nama), accounting for the largest amount owed by the top 10 developers moving to the agency in the coming weeks. The Irish Times has established the identities of the top borrowers being moved in the first wave of transfers to the State agency. They are developers Liam Carroll; Bernard McNamara; Sean Mulryan of Ballymore; financier Derek Quinlan; Paddy McKillen, owner of the Jervis Street Shopping Centre; Treasury Holdings, which is owned by Johnny Ronan and Richard Barrett; Cork developer Michael O’Flynn; Joe O’Reilly, the developer behind the Dundrum Shopping Centre in Dublin; Dublin builder Gerry Gannon, co-owner of the K Club golf resort in Co Kildare; and Galway businessman Gerry Barrett, owner of Ashford Castle in Co Mayo and G Hotel in Galway. More than €16 billion in loans linked to the top 10 are being mov

Mortgage timebomb will cause new banks crisis when it goes off... The recommendation that the moratorium on repossessions should be extended by a further year is another sign that the clock is ticking on our €150bn mortgage time bomb. Last year all of the main banks and building societies agreed not to repossess the homes of people whose mortgages were in arrears for at least 12 months. Now, with the 12-month moratorium about to expire for many of those in arrears, there are fears that the number of homeowners facing repossession could rocket. For some it has already happened. Entertainer Adele King (better known as Twink) revealed that her family home was about to be repossessed by her lender. Twink's statement came on the same day that the Oireachtas Committee on Social and Family Affairs recommended the 12-month moratorium on home repossessions be extended to 24 months. The recommendation comes just 11 days after the Financial Regulator extended the 12-month repossession morator