Ronan Lyons | Personal Website
Ronan Lyons | Personal Website

negative equity

Home thoughts to abroad: Three things the Irish election has made clear

Last week, Ireland had its most momentous election since 1932, when the Fianna Fail party that would dominate politics for 80 years was born. Aside from the politics, there are clear messages in the election. This post reviews, primarily for a non-Irish audience, two messages relating to Ireland’s debt burden – that voters do not want sovereign default but do not regard bank debt in that category – as well as the real underlying issues behind the voters’ choices. Read more

Mortgage arrears and the banks: a €100bn problem or a €1bn problem?

This post attempts to put some shape on an answer to the question: Just what exactly is the scale of Ireland’s mortgage arrears “time bomb”? In particular, it takes issue with Morgan Kelly’s article suggesting that for bank balance sheets, mortgage arrears will dwarf NAMA write-downs. It does this by looking at some basic arithmetic. Whatever about the costs of repossessions for society, for the banks, the scale of the problem is much more likely to be closer to €1bn than the €100bn required to dwarf NAMA-related bank losses. Read more

House price falls of 40% suggest 100,000 in severe negative equity

The latest Daft House Price Report, for Q3 2010, is out and this post reviews its main findings, including signs of easing price falls in Dublin and the likelihood of sellers finding a buyer. It also updates previous estimates of the number of households in negative equity, now over 200,000. The main worry has to be the number in severe negative equity of €50,000 or more, estimated at 100,000. Read more

Up to 60,000 households threatened by negative equity and unemployment

Currently, up to one in four households with a mortgage is faced with negative equity. At the same time, one in seven is coping with unemployment. It is likely, then, that there are in the region of 20,000 homes faced with both negative equity and unemployment. If the Live Register reaches 500,000 and house prices fall another 25% in the next year, this figure could treble to 3.5% of all households. Read more

How many Irish homes are in negative equity?

Ireland’s property market is currently in rewind. Homes now are at March 2005 values – or July 2004, if asking prices are 10% above closing prices. Figures from daft.ie, the Census and the Dept of the Environment allow an estimate of both the number of homes now worth less than when they were bought – about 725,000, or 40% of homes – and how many of those are in negative equity -about 340,000, or 20% of homes. Read more