Different house pricing surveys released this week indicate that house prices in Ireland are still escalating. Daft.ie showed that 8.4% was the average increase in the first three months of 2022. Central Statistics Office figures also indicate that property prices shot up again in January 2022, as the pressure on potential buyers shows no signs of abating. They were up by 14.8% in the year nationally.
Despite the upsurge in the cost of new homes, Housing Minister Darragh O’Brien has made it clear that there no current plans to increase the house price limits for local authority mortgages.
Sinn Féin’s Eoin Ó Broin had asked in the Dáil if the housing minister had any plans to review the house price limits for the mortgages. The Local Authority Home Loan being a Government backed mortgage for those on modest or low incomes who cannot get a mortgage from the banks to buy or build a home. This is essentially the successor to the Rebuilding Ireland Home Loan, and can be used both for new and second-hand properties, or to self-build.
Mr O’Brien told the Dáil the scheme is available for first-time buyers and fresh-start applicants and can also be used for the purchase of homes through state schemes such as the Tenant Purchase Scheme and Affordable Housing Schemes, with the exception of the First Home Scheme.
Mr O’Brien added that the scheme supports home ownership amongst lower to moderate income households by reducing the cost of mortgage finance and increasing the level of financing available, particularly for single applicants in urban areas. But he reiterated that there are no plans to adjust house price limits.