Affordable Housing v Shared Ownership
Hi Brian,
I have a few friends on both the shared ownership and affordable housing schemes so I think I might be able to answer a few of your questions.
Firstly affordable housing and shared ownership are two totally different schemes, however to qualify for the affordable scheme you must first meet the eligibility criteria for shared ownership. Don’t ask me why, that is just the way councils are doing it.
The affordable scheme aims to offer applicants a house at cost price, i.e. by cutting out the developers profit you get the house at a significant discount to the market price - usually 30%-40% as that’s the sort of margins developers make. For example a recent scheme in Blanchardstown saw 3 bed houses that were selling for €185K being offered under the affordable scheme for €123K. The council gets these houses either by building the houses themselves or obtaining houses under the 20% for social/affordable housing provision that developers must set aside in new schemes. As you can’t be earning more than €32k the houses offered on the scheme will rarely be for more than €127K (£100K). Therefore developers with expensive schemes very often hand over money to the council, provide a park or local amenity, provide lower cost housing on the site or hand over a greater percentage of another development they are working on in the county. Most developers have been holding out handing over the 20% to local county councils in the hopes that the Act would be repelled. As this has not happened all new planning application are making full provision for social/affordable housing in 2 of Dublin’s county districts. Of course developers would mush prefer to have affordable housing rather then social housing on their site so they are agreeing to put more affordable houses on site if the council lets them away with the social housing provision.
To be eligible for an affordable scheme you need to be earning less than €32k in the previous tax year. You need a P60 to prove that you meet this requirement. This is important as your P60 will only show taxable income. So if you are earning over €32K, it is possible you could put money into a pension via AVC’s and still look as if you where earning under €32K. As the income qualification is retrospective you would need to be doing this now to qualify for the scheme next year. There are also lots of forms to fill out and then you’ll be interviewed. Once you are approved you will be put on a county list. If you had lived in a certain part of the county for 5 years you are also put on a local list. So for example if you applied to Fingal County Council you would be put on their general list which is about 300+ at present. Fingal further divides the county up into 4 local areas. So if you had lived in Malahide you would be on the local list for Malahide/Howth area as well as the general county list. The local list is of course a lot shorter than the general list. The idea of the local list is that when affordable houses are built in an area, locals are given the vast majority of the allocation. Its therefore more likely that you would get an affordable house on a local list than a general list. As a result its probably best if you apply to your local county council, although you can apply to any county council in the country to access their general list. At the moment the only county councils in Dublin with an affordable list are Fingal and Dublin City councils. The South Dublin councilors obviously feel people don’t need affordable houses on the southside!
The Shared Ownership scheme works in a very different way. You do not get a discounted house. Rather you are approved up to €190K to buy a house. You get a mortgage from the council for a portion of the house and rent the remainder from the council. The advantage of this scheme is that you can go and find a house yourself and don’t have to wait around on a list to be offered a house. The disadvantage is that you pay full market price for the house. In addition if you want to buy the portion of the house you are renting at some later stage, you will pay market price, not the original price + inflation. I believe all Dublin’s county councils have shared ownership schemes up and running.
Hope this answers most of your questions.
One other thing,
MOB, I think you are mistaken about smaller allocations in wealthier areas. The aim of social/affordable hosuing is to enhance social integration, for this reason wealthier areas are in theory supposed to receive higher allocations than less well off areas. Of course local residents associations in wealthier areas often pressure councilors into reducing or eliminating social provision in new schemes.