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THE AVERAGE DEPOSIT amount for a first-time buyer in the first half of 2021 was almost €52,100 and €135,000 for a mover-purchaser.
The latest Banking and Payments Federation Ireland (BPFI) housing market monitor found that the main source of the deposits came from purchasers’ own savings.
Nearly 42% of first-time buyers used gifts as part of their deposits compared with almost 25% of mover-purchasers during the first half of 2021. However, some 96% of first-time buyers used savings to fund their deposits.
BPFI estimated that during the same period, the total value of gifts towards deposits was almost €210 million. That includes €149.3 million for first-time buyers and €60.4 million for mover-purchasers.
Own savings were almost four times that of gifts, totalling around €795 million.
For mover purchasers, other sources such as inheritance and the proceeds from the sale of a previous property were significant sources of deposits.
The Central Bank recently announced that a “carry-over” system will be introduced for managing allowances where unused allowances can be accrued over for use in the first half of 2022 on the provision that those loans are approved in 2021.
This is likely to increase approval activity during the rest of 2021 where drawdown activity in the first half of 2022 should reflect this increase.
Commenting on rising house prices which seem to be driving deposit amounts, chief executive of BPFI Brian Hayes said the acceleration in house price growth in recent months was mainly due to the imbalance between supply and demand following the pandemic.
“Residential property prices increased by 12.4% in the year to September 2021 at the national level, where average prices of new homes were up by 3.3% year on year whereas average prices of existing homes increased by 13%. Average prices increased by 11.5% in Dublin and 13.2% outside Dublin in the year to September 2021,” he said.
In contrast, the lower-than-estimated supply, due to the pandemic, in 2020 and 2021 has put further pressure on average prices and affordability is becoming challenging with average rents also at their highest levels, more than one third higher than their peak in 2008. Annual housing output has been flat in 2020 and during 2021 but it is expected to increase significantly in 2022 with increased commencement activity particularly since April 2021 with the full reopening of the construction sector. However, cost inflation is likely to play a role on average price developments over the short term.
Despite the current challenges, the monitor predicts that housing and mortgage activity is set to exceed 2019 levels prior to the pandemic.
In terms of housing output, 13,574 units were completed in the nine months ending September 2021, a slight increase compared to the same period last year.
The share of apartments in total completions accounted for around 22% of total completions in the first nine months of 2021. In 2015, the share of apartments in total completions was 9%.
The monitor found that nearly 27,000 units were commenced in the ten-month period to October 2021, with over 24,000 of these units commenced since April when the construction sector fully reopened.
On an annualised basis, commencement numbers reached a record high with almost 31,000 units commenced in the year to October 2021. Dublin and Dublin Commuter accounted for over 60% of all commencements during 2021.
Hayes said the findings suggest that a significant increase in commencement numbers this year is likely to lead to a substantial increase in completion numbers next year.
“The only downside risk to the estimated increase in completions in 2022 is the increasing share of apartments in completions and the likelihood that apartment commencements take longer to complete. However, even with this caveat, the Monitor concludes there is a significant pipeline of residential home building activity which will lead to substantial uplift in housing supply in the next two years.”
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€52000 deposit just for a roof over your head, and a lifetime paying the mortgage, shame on us, dreadful
@Valentine Kane: Chickens have come home to roost. Came to Ireland 20 years ago and remember right away being baffled by politics here and its policies.
1. Fuelling boom during celtic tiger by more exp (benchmarking) and lower taxes
2. Relying on private imvestors for housinng ones less privileged
3. The Boston or berlin discussion in health care, why would anyone choose us society over German? Well certainly Berlin wasn’t chosen since they have 6 times more icu beds..
So yes, all who voted FF or FG in last 20 years, look in the mirror and did you really vote for a social long term goals or for short term personal ones? Majority latter.
@Valentine Kane: Interfering with the market always backfires. The same left wing politicians and media pressured banks to give everyone and anyone loans to have “equality”. 100% loans, no deposit, this socialist idea is now being replaced with another, drive out accommodation providers and punish anyone who dares to put savings into housing others.
@Tom Molloy: Tom, when did we ever have a left wing government?
@Tom Molloy: Never let historical fact stand in the way of an agenda. It was property related taxes that encouraged government policy during the ‘Celtic Tiger’ and cheap credit from the Euro Zone/ECB. Yes, there were calls from the Irish left for easier access to mortgages as well. The simple fact is that in an economic bubble, everyone appears to be doing so well so easily, that it’s not in anyone’s interests to ask better questions about what is happening. Citizens get more money, governments get more taxes, regulators are encouraged to not interfere in the ‘magic of the markets’, etc.
@David A. Murray: leaprachaun economics the FF way of running a country
@Tom Molloy: Good man Tom.
Left wing politicians made FFG interfere in the market, and as I post this 13 other tits have given you a thumbs up.
I presume those 13 are all making a killing from some poor sod renting.
The FFG way.
@Tom Molloy: God that’s a clueless comment
@Tom Molloy: utter unhistorical rubbish. Have you ever heard of The New Deal?
@Tom Molloy: what a strange brain you have and same of those liking your comment
@Brian Burns: seen a post on Facebook yesterday where a guy said basically, if you not rich enough to buy your own home you deserve homelessness. I’d say Tom is of the same ilk!
@Raymond Scott: we spend as much on health as Germans. Are you one
@Valentine Kane: We are so far left that for the sake of the country SF will have to tack right or we will end up like Venezuela.
@Tom Molloy: The Help to Buy scheme surely is a policy that had the effect of interfering with the market, are you now implying that policy has backfired??
@Dave Thomas: Repeating such a heartless comment about desperate homeless people shows this is all a game to you. Sad.
@Raymond Scott: you obviously chose Ireland over Berlin, planes do go there from here frequently.
@Gerard Heery: and FG
Reducing supply and pushing up property prices is one of the few FG policies that they’ve managed to execute effectively. Just a shame it’s so detrimental to the ordinary citizen. If only they could put the same energy into actually improving people’s lives but I suppose why bother when they just keep voting for you anyway.
Bought a house in September. €65,000 deposit as I was not a first time buyer and my partner was. €3,250 stamp duty. €2,700 estate agent fees to sell my apartment. €6,500 for the sell and buy conveyancing. Mad money! Only for the equity in my apt and my partner working 3 jobs we were going nowhere! I feel sorry for anybody trying to trade up its an utterly horrid experience.
@Fi Wyse: nice they reduced stamp duty years ago, I had to pay €20k in stamp duty and also pay LPT now.
@Fi Wyse: yeah trading up is a disaster as sellers see you as in a chain. Then there is no grace period to move from 1 to the other. I would think twice about moving again over it
@Kieran: I sold my apartment independently while waiting for my vendor to complete her sale it was a brown trousers moment I could have been left with nothing but the purchasers of my apt were putting me under horrific pressure to sell. Nightmare!!
Sinn fein in power next year and free house for everyone, problem solved.
@Liam Collins: Ah sure the usual suspects FFFG plus labour and the greens have let most people down. So I’ll take a pop at sinn fein good man Liam.
@Liam Collins: Come on Liam. You know that’s not true. Why post things that are not true?
@Liam Collins: your dead right Liam, for the last 30 years that Sinn Fein government of ours just wrecked the the housing market.
@Liam Collins: always fun to see ddesperate , nonsensical comments like this
@Valentine Kane: you’d swear we live in the most corrupt economic deprived society in the world. Irish people, while expensive, have a great standard of living. As much as people won’t admit, the country does look after the vulnerable through social housing, HAP, generous social welfare etc. Anyone who lives in social housing will only pay rent as per their means, ie if you are unemployed you probably pay 20 or 30 euro, you still get social welfare.
The housing crisis is a result of how successful the country is, we have people flocking to the country to work and live, that in turn creates a housing squeeze. But we need these people as they contribute and pay taxes that also support our welfare.
Continued,
I am not a FFG supporter and yes they have problems but to say we have had 100 years of mismanagement etc. Is totally ignorant. Just drive through towns and cities and you can see vast amounts of old and new social housing. If FFG really mismanaged the country we’d still be living in tennaments, and no what we have today does not amount to a whole family in a room of a building with 20 other families sharing an outhouse toilet.
We have a labour shortage at present so how anyone perceives that as negative is beyond me
@Kieran: Were you unemployed for a long period?
Good to see that you were looked after regarding rent and housing.
@G Row.: no I wasn’t but I know people who were and I know people who are living in recently built social housing which is top spec and they are very grateful
I’ve a mortgage but don’t resent those that are down on their luck or who didn’t get the same encouragement I got from parents.
We had no money and I got educated through college for free and got the grant. I am now in a good job and repaying that early help by paying taxes
@Kieran: I have 2 adult daughters living at home with no prospect of owning their own place unless they’re prepared to move to the middle of nowhere on the other side of the country. It’s great that you got your home but for those who haven’t, every day and every week that slips by makes that dream even more unaffordable and that’s a direct result of FFG policy. Feel free to celebrate the fact that we’re not all living tenements but many of us would have more lofty goals for our children.
@Kieran: You know a couple of people who were sorted out with social housing, that doesn’t mean there isn’t a housing crisis.
@Kieran: “looked after” right…I was living at home well into my late 20s just trying to get ahead savings wise and it was becoming blindly obvious that I was never going to reasonably be able to afford a home of my own, on top of that as a healthcare worker in the HSE I was working horrendous shifts, had no work-life balance and the covid hit and suddenly my hours increased whatever semblance of a social life I had evaporated and it broke me. I left. I’m not coming back. I’ve never felt supported or looked after either professionally, or as a young person (not so young anymore) trying to get on the property ladder in Ireland. Honestly I always assumed I’d end up coming back home for higher training eventually but leaving Ireland really hilighted a) how incredibly badly we treat our healthcare workers and b) how hard it is to get by in Ireland unless you’re a millionaire. It’s only when you’re in the sh!t that you think that’s as good as it gets.
@SJF: Can I ask, do you feel other countries support their youth to purchase houses? The UK has the exact same issues and the same first time buyers approach, so does Canada, so does the US, Australia (NSW) just give a $10,000 grant up to $600k value to help against GST which doesn’t help, Germany has HIGHER minimum deposit requirements but a small grant to help first time buyers…. So, where do you think young people are supported more by their government to buy houses or what support do you think other governments offer? Genuine question
@Local Ore: It’s not so much a matter of support so much as the governments not actively hamstringing the working population.
Lower taxes (our marginal tax rate is truly atrocious), lower rent as a byproduct of better availability and lower taxes on rental income for private landlords, banks that don’t refuse to lend more than 3 times your salary when the average house is approximately 5-6 times the median income etc etc. Back home I worked nonstop and never seemed to have anything to show for my efforts largely due to FFGs ongoing policy of artificially increasing house prices through supply shortages (that and being ideologically opposed to building social housing) combined with a runaway rental market bleeding renters dry so they can’t save and our tax rate (and yes, I’m including USC as a tax because it comes out of our cheques and we have no choice but to pay it). I just felt like I could never get ahead. Now I have an actual work-life balance and living is just..easier…affordable…
@Declan Doherty: I have lived in the middle of nowhere, i was not handed anything and worked hard for everything I have. I didn’t buy a house till into my 30s and commuted an hour each way to work for 2 years before i was able to upgrade and move closer.
FFG policy while I don’t defend, what is your solution? We don’t have the workers to build the vast SF spoof quantity, its a catch 22, if you bring in workers to build houses then they need to live somewhere and that will deepen the housing crisis.
I do think we need to move to modular built work camps thatare heavily protected so we can bring in workers who only want to earn and send money back to their home country. They will provide the labour to build the houses, but I guarantee youd have every know it all giving out about that too.
@G Row.: i know that, there is a housing crisis but to say it is deliberate is just plain ignorant. Only way to solve it is to start inward immigration immediately and start building to clear the backlog, but for obvious reasons that is not a solution and we would end up with a brexit type labour shortage.
We were broke 10 years ago so the argument we should have been building is just wrong.
@SJF: I never had a house in my 20s, what makes you think you are entitled to that. There are plenty of options, even commuting for a few years.
Sick of people bashing ireland, the grass is not greener and I can tell you that from experience.
I do acknowledge it is difficult to get ahead in Ireland but its the same in every country.
@Kieran: Yawn….the ol “I didn’t have x so you’re not entitled to it” argument….I’m not saying Im entitled to a house in my 20s. You obviously weren’t paying attention I said I was still living at home well into my 20s to try and save to get onto the property ladder and it looked like it was never going to happen …even in my 30s so I left and the grass IS greener for me for sure. The sheer arrogance I have literally told you I emigrated, things are better for me, more affordable and you launch in with “the grass isn’t greener” and insinuated the hardest decision of my life was because I wanted to be handed a house in my 20s. But from the looks of it you’re plugging your ears to every commenter that disagrees with you and ploughing forward stating your own opinions as fact. Good luck.
Ireland equivalent of the diamond trade, keeping the supply low and the price artificially high.
@Hugh Mc Donnell: And that way the balance sheets in the banks artificially balanced. Ah… those lovely banks…
This great little country is now a basket case. Young people of Ireland I’ll say a prayer for yous.
The official house price figures are deflated since every single property listed on the web sites(where they pull their stats from) are 10-50k less than the actual sales after the biddings.
Also what i cant understand is why people have to pay property tax if they are not owning the property untill the mortgage is paid out in full? Shouldnt they be paying it when YOU are the owner and not the bank?
FFG is a great little cosy cartel sitting on a gravy train for the past 100 years.
@John Johnes: You seem to be confusing mortgages with hire purchase agreements.
When you take out a mortgage, you own the property from day one, not the bank. A mortgage is a contract for a loan which is secured on s residential property. Title does not transfer to the bank at any point.
@John Johnes: they ate not pulling the stats from the websites of houses for sale, but from recent sale prices
@John Johnes: I would imagine they use the property price register. Which in some cases is Ex VAT but not hard to do the calculations. Also you own the home from the outset… The same way you own a Car with a car loan. The asset is a security against defaulting the loan.
There’s a small percentage of people on very high wages in this country and they are buying the small number of houses available. Only when supply increases and outstrips demand will prices lower. Probably never as there’s so much demand. They’d want to seriously build massive amounts and fast which ain’t gonna happen
@kevinhunt101: A condition of refinancing the Banks should have been that the Banks fund their builder customers. Only overseas investors from open economies have the courage/naivety and the means of providing quantity housing in Ireland now.
Somehow people are still affording these homes so the prices won’t stop going up as long as they sell.
@Burt Macklin: i know at leat 3 people that are sitting on an approved banks mortgages that keep reapplying and cant buy a house for years since they kept getting outbid even on properties in tallagh. Its crazy.
@John Johnes: When sellers cannot sell due to lending restrictions they cannot fund further investment. Banks demanding impossible terms from Irish borrowers means only investors from non socialist countries can fund housing development. The once centrist parties first FF and then FG had to steal left wing policies to please popular opinion.
@Tom Molloy: Ha ha good one, you on the sauce early?
@John Johnes: oh my god NOT TALLAGHT :-O
@John Johnes: Any Dublin suburb is highly desirable, that’s not surprising. They need to push away from the area if they are to pay the mortgage off before they retire. Sounds like they are just wasting time. There’s loads of small towns along the m7/m9 motorways.
A Referendum is the only way to fix the recurring housing crises.
You have to demand this if you want a decent country for your kids to live in.
https://www.change.org/p/irish-referendum-on-family-home-special-status
The Central Bank rules on deposits for Irish people is anti citizen …
Right to shelter .. an affordable roof over your head is a fundamental right.
No taxes should apply to housing .. like no tax on food or water or healthcare or medicines or any other basic need …
People should be able to do their own conveyancing and be FACILITATED by Gov to do it.
Does anyone know if the 135,000 for movers includes the price of the house that is being sold?
@Cathal Reidy: I would imagine yes
Yawn….the ol “I didn’t have x so you’re not entitled to it” argument….I’m not saying Im entitled to a house in my 20s. You obviously weren’t paying attention I said I was still living at home well into my 20s to try and save to get onto the property ladder and it looked like it was never going to happen …even in my 30s so I left and the grass IS greener for me for sure. The sheer arrogance I have literally told you I emigrated, things are better for me, more affordable and you launch in with “the grass isn’t greener” and insinuated the hardest decision of my life was because I wanted to be handed a house in my 20s. But from the looks of it you’re plugging your ears to every commenter that disagrees with you and ploughing forward stating your own opinions as fact. Good luck.
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