Ireland’s property and mortgage market recap for April 2023 🇮🇪
Hello everyone, John Coleman here, Ireland’s mortgage broker with your property and mortgage market recap of April 2023. 🇮🇪
- I hope everyone had a wonderful and relaxing May Bank Holiday.
Now, back to business with three items on the agenda today: interest rates, property prices, and bank service.
- When it comes to interest rates, we’re looking to May 5th, when the European Central Bank will be meeting to decide if they should increase interest rates again or not. Normally, they signal their intentions beforehand, but this time they’ve just said they their decision will be “data driven.”
Hopefully if they make a rate increase on May 5th it will be the last one in this cycle, which seems to be the expectation.
Of course, when rates go up doe to Euro Central Bank increases, it doesn’t have an immediate impact on Ireland’s banks and rates, but that’s just a matter of time.
- There are two schools of thoughts on what might happen with property prices.
One is that with rates going up, it has to dampen demand and bring prices down.
But the second school of thought – one that I tend to subscribe to – is that since supply is still so drastically low, with strong buyer demand, we’ll probably just see a cooling off or leveling of property price growth, even with higher interest rates.
Of course, what the central bank does next with interest rates will influence whether we see more significant price drops, but the fundamentals of supply and demand are just not pointing to that.
- And now, my least favourite topic : bank service. I can call it “average” at best, but that’s probably being way too generous.
I have to keep telling people to go check their first-time buyer forms to make sure they don’t run out of time with banks giving approvals so slowly these days.
In fact, it’s a little embarrassing, but I’m also trying to do my part to expedite the process and advise people how to navigate the banks’ service.
- There is one more interesting piece of news for you today. Ireland First Home Scheme was brought in last year and only applied to new properties.
Now, that’s been extended to second-hand properties IF you’re living in that property and have been given notification of termination.
So, if you’re in a home and the owner is selling, the First Home Scheme may be able to help you if you’re looking to buy it.
As always, please contact me if you have any questions about obtaining a mortgage or buying property here in Ireland. I’m happy to help!
-John Coleman,
JC Mortgages
☎️ Tel 01-8102032
📲 Mobile 086 3970039
📩 Email john@jcmortgages.ie
💻 Web www.jcmortgages.ie