The link between lack of enforcement / fewer respossessions and high SVRs is overly simplistic. It reminds me of the other flawed hypothesis - that if every defaulter was thrown out, that it would magically free up the market for first time buyers / people trading up.
I'm not sure if house prices are being artificially inflated or if they are returning to 'actual' levels.
Sarenco
Who are these international banks (putative competitors) that would magically jump in, if our arrears / repossession issues were settled in the morning? I believe it's a flawed assumption to heavily link the lack of competition from foreign banks to the arrears / repossession crisis. I'm sure it doesn't help, but I imagine other factors are more important, such as: lack of residential construction activity, their own balance sheet problems, cost of entry to the Irish market, the fact that we had one of the worst - if not the worst - housing crash in modern times etc.
Re. 'Societal perspective' and 'accommodation remains available' - where are those that can't (as opposed to the minority that 'won't') afford their mortages going to live? We have a serious homeless crisis that is already out of control. 10 year waiting lists for social housing. 1% of Dublin landlords accept the 'rent supplement' - if you don't believe the figure, go on to Daft.ie or MyHome.ie and try and find a single property in Cork or Dublin that accepts 'rent supplement'. Joan Burton announced recently that she had decided against raising the rent supplement ceiling as she believed that it would lead to a rise in rents for eveybody - even though 99% of Dublin landlords won't accept rent supplement.
Hi epicaricay
It is certainly true that there are other barriers to entry but it is surprising that we have not seen any new entrants to the mortgage market given the juicy rates on offer.
I don't understand the argument that links loan enforcement with homelessness. A property doesn't vanish because it is repossessed by a lender - it simply becomes occupied by somebody who can afford it. The previous occupants will have move to somewhere they can afford. There is no net change to the available accommodation that existed prior to the repossession - people simply change positions.
I'm not sure what to say to that!!!
Throwing many thousands of families onto the street when the social housing infrastructure isn't there to cater for them and where rent supplements aren't high enough to afford alternate accommodation would cause significantly more hardship than the stress involved for people paying an extra 1.8% SVR.
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?