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The Daily PollTHE AVERAGE AGE of first-time home buyers has increased to 34, according to new figures.
This average age has jumped from 29 in 2006, according to the Real Estate Alliance (a group that represents estate agents).
Under Central Bank rules introduced last year, borrowers are expected to have at least a 20% deposit saved for the value of the house they hope to buy.
For first-time buyers the rules are slightly more lax, with 10% of the first €220,000 required and 20% thereafter.
We want to know: Do you expect to buy your own home?
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I’d love my own home more than anything. Just got married last year, both employed, desperate to have kids but don’t want to raise them in a rented house. Just want a nest like my parents and grandparents had.
A kid doesn’t know if the house is rented or not. The only thing a kid needs is a warm loving environment. Not sure how old you are, but I left it too late (35) to have my first and now I’m paying the price as my energy levels are dropping and I have two kids to deal. If I had my time over I would have aimed for about 32. My wife would have been 30 at that point.
Let’s be honest though, until it’s all paid back it really isn’t your home. You might as well be renting and what’s worse, having to do the plumbing yourself and fixing of certain appliances. The only positive thing I see in it is that it becomes an investment once it’s all over whereas with renting your just throwing money away to a landlord and aiding his future investment.
but kids have a negative impact on mortgage applications. I’m in the UK and each child is seen to cost 10k a year, so two kids means your income which contributes to your mortgage application is cut by 20k a year. Not ideal.
But is an investment, if you have children, it’s an investment for them.. when you pass you can give them 150k plus… very hard to pay rent, save money and then have nothing to show for it.
If you’re holding out so you can have what you parents had you’ll be waiting a while. Nothing wrong with renting.
Kids are a choice
Putting this age planning into things is irrational. It’s all about spontaneity, love and the mystery/happenings of life. Some guys like you try to work our where their unborn daughter will go to college in 20 years time. Chill…
Wake up and smell the coffee, the world has changed since our parents could afford to buy their own homes. We all came from bigger families, back in the 80′s most families had five or six children. The dad worked away in good jobs that has a decent pension. Most mum’s stayed at home to look after the kids and everyboody seemed to get by fine. Nowadays families have one or two kids max, both parents are working 40 hours a week in good jobs but can’t afford to buy. What does that tell you about the world we live in today. A Capitalism society that only benifits the people who sit in the Dail and the top 1% of society. When the rest of us were struggling to get through a recession our Government sold off houses and apartments to foreign investors and now these same investors are controlling the housing market in Ireland. If you want to own your own home and make a decent life for yourself, get out and as far away as this kip as you can..
@Grundy
Trust me, the uncertainty with rent is scary. Will it be put up beyond your ability to pay? Where will you go if that happens? 20% of a house worth €300,000 means we have to save €30,000 EACH. I’m finding that impossible with rent of €1,470 per month.
In fairness Cosmo when you have a Minister for Finance who is more interested in looking at the Dow Jones than he is at looking after the electorate things are going to get a lot worse.
They don’t want you to buy you’re own house. Massive global property investment firms bought up huge chunks of the Irish property market from Nama and these same companies are dictating everything that is happening in the Irish property market today. They own so many units that when they increase rent in their properties that everybody else follows. The Government are powerless to stop it. Our children and grandchildren will be renting off these companies, the same properties that the Irish people handed blank cheques over to bail out the banks.. Makes you mad doesn’t it..
The government are responsible for selling off a lot of distressed loans to vulture funds for huge discounts but I suppose when a large proportion of our politicians are landlords, what can we expect .
How about getting the kids to educate themselves work hard and buy their own house and earn their own 150k?
Good Man Stephen.You want a society where you have to earn 150k to be able to afford your own home.. There’s a job waiting for you in Leinster House..
If we all stopped supporting this ridiculous concept of owning our own home, we could be in social housing with a rental market that is controlled to guarantee access instead of in this corrupt system of exploitation people are experiencing now in Dublin.
Oh Cosmos what socialist defeatist trash you’ve just come out with. Anyone can work hard enough to achieve whatever they want in life anyone. This can’t do attitude is part of the reason why people can’t own their own houses.
People support the concept of owning their own home exactly because the rental system doesn’t support long term renting. Imagine renting as an OAP, how could you afford it? There’s a complete lack of control over your own space, can’t even hang up a poster or have a cat, get rid of the shitty furniture, paint a wall. Then there’s the uncertainty of your landlord being able to hike up your rent every two years, no long term guarantee that you’ll be able to afford to live in your home.
I’m sure there would be many more people happy to rent if there was actually a decent system in place to protect long term renters.
Stephen you don’t think it’s in any way strange that there are a whole generation of people now who can barely afford to buy their own home? It’s just a lazy generation problem with a “can’t do attitude” where no one is bothered enough to work hard and buy a house?
Like really, that’s your educated view on the situation?
Daphne, that is why going down the road of demanding social housing is the way forward. Houses brought to the market with the specific intention of improving the lives of our citizens. Different levels of properties available for people who want ‘bigger and better’ houses or areas with the only losers being the vultures forcing our people into defacto slaves.
It’s an unpopular opinion but there really needs to be 100% mortgages for people long term renting, if you’ve rented for a period of say 5 years you’ve shown you can afford the repayments on a mortgage, it’s near impossible to pay rent and save a deposit and it’s unfair to expect young people to pay someone else’s mortgage and save for there own
Thomas, I am not sure 100% mortgages are the way to go, but there certainly is room for some imaginative ways of helping people caught in the renting/saving for deposit trap.
But it still doesn’t address the fact that there aren’t enough houses being built.
Yeah it make me mad but all those who voted for FF seem to have no problem with what was done to them. I am guessing most of them are too dumb to even realise just how badly they have been shafted
Phil it would no doubt lead to another inflation in property prices but I don’t see any alternative hopefully someone in government has a better idea, the government needs to become the largest builder of houses in the state.
I couldn’t agree more. Well said
The new rules will prevent you becoming a mortgage slave. Buy what you can afford don’t over stretch. Bought a small house when I was 30. At 40 was able to buy the house I wanted. Most friends over extended buying their first house and are stuck. Money is a good servant but a cruel master.
I choose to long term rent because I like the security of knowing that if something breaks my landlord will fix it. If we need to move to a bigger place we move. If we need to move to a smaller place we move….. potentially… we haven’t… but I like that we could. We are long term renters and our neighbours though friendly over look us and act like we don’t exist even though we’ve been here 8 years. We have wonderful landlord and a great relationship with them. But that goes with the fact that we believe a tenant is a custodian of a property and should take care of it as their home and should be ready to leave it in the same state they found it at any stage. Which we can. Maintain the gardens and facade keep the walls white inside and out. We could buy at any point but we choose not to. We have seen the deviating debt and stress that people are in dealing with mortgages and banks. We choose this life. The Irish have an obsession that is not on mainland Europe with owning property. If the banks dealt better with landlords and their mortgages they would deal better with their tenants and visa versa. Each relationship is paramount to making the whole system work. We understand that. So we choose to make our landlords life easy but they know if I call they need to pull their weight too. We work together to maintain their property and our home. And yes I would happily live this way indefinitely.
Stephen, a house is your home if you live in it. The difference between rent and a morgage is the fact that most mortgages remain constant throughout the loan period, whereas rent will conttinue to rise. The only advantage to rent is that you can move to another location with relatively little inconvenience whenever you like. In the present economic and employment climate rent is a sensible idea for many people.
You birds! Always so chirpy about life! – terrible joke sorry!
No. I’ve completely gone off the idea and I’m still thanking my lucky stars I didn’t buy during the last boom. I was poised to and had financing lined up. It’s only now lots of my friends in their late 30′s are finally getting back on their feet and many of them that bought didn’t make it through their own relationships. Many people in their 30′s have lost an entire decade. Very strange that the majority of my female friends are still childless and single, the blokes I know in my social group are also either single, or have come out the back of breakups. Lots of this mess was down to financial stresses, unemployment, not having money to go out to socialise and meet people.
That said, at least 4 or 5 of my single friends have bought houses for themselves in the last 2 years, but that’s too much pressure for one person imo. Then again, they are childless.
That’s great, thanks for that.
I think this comment might be the most normal comment that you’ve ever posted on thejournal. So much so that I felt the need to commend you. Well done. :) :)
I’m sorry relationships break up but if it was due to financial pressure and stress a child would do the same. Lots has changed in society and blaming house prices misses that expectations are very different now and maybe unrealistic.
I returned to Ireland in 2011 and bought a house then at close to the bottom of the market. Prices in area are now 50% higher.
Is the lunacy of inflated house prices kicking off again?
We don’t learn, do we?
Learn what? What are people supposed to do about it? They can keep pouring money into someone elses mortgage or get one of their own.
I bought but it was funded with inheritance. I couldn’t have afforded to pay for studies, fund a business and save for a deposit/pay a mortgage all at the same time.
Housing market in Ireland is as messed up as it was during the boom and it seems the Government are completely unwilling to do anything about it.
Unwilling and/or unable
Unwilling.
Not meaning to sound smart, but what do you think they should be doing, Phil? Genuinely interested.
I agree that it’s a problem that’s not sufficiently being addressed, but I don’t even know what I think the solution should be myself…
Referendum on “Right2Home” like German Constitution only long term answer. Else your kids and grand kids will continue to be at the mercy of financial predators to get a roof over their heads ……
https://www.change.org/p/irish-government-call-for-referendum-on-right2home-in-ireland
The great big elephant in the room of course is the reason housing is so much more unaffordable than our parents time is that women have entered the workforce in massive numbers, meaning every offer for a house has two paychecks behind it rather than one, pushing up the final price. The supply of housing has only marginally increased. It’s not that women should be blamed for this, but this is the truth when you are wondering why a house is so darn expensive compared to what our parents generation faced.
Damn wimmin, ruining it for the rest of us.
they terk err jerbs!
This generation is probably the first who are worse off or no better off then their parents. And it is the same the world over. An American immigrant for example could dream, one day my son will be President, some day I will go to college, get a degree, own my own home etc etc…the ethos was I am working hard so my children can have a better life than me……work hard and you will be rewarded….sadly this does not seem to be the case anymore.
Would love to own our own house one day.
Im 34 , in a good job, paying rent of 850 a month , cant afford to save enough for a mortage
Clearly it’s not a good job mate if you pay 850 rent and cannot save up. Unless you’re not telling us anything about your Dan Bilzarian lifestyle.
Problem is when they relax the rules for you to get a mortgage, they do for everyone and house prices automatically jump. Leaving you, in reality, no better off.
Mate??? Whats a good job in your eyes?? After tax and all the other bullshit im left with 400 euro a wk, that 1600 a month , take away the rent and other weekly expenses, theres fuc all left to save up for a deposit…wish i had a dan bilzarian lifestyle but instead ive more of a mr beans lifestyle
On those figures, you’ll be lucky to get 100k on approval (3x gross salary) Also 53% of monthly net spend on rent must be incredibly difficult.
Dodgy boy: no offence but 400 a week per hand and you call it a good job? Good when you’re a student living with your ma and da maybe. Good luck finishing something normal.
*finding
Whats normal in the job world with a decent wage???
Yes, and lots of other people’s homes too.
Well its Unusual for people to have a stable job thats lasts more than 4 years, same goes for relationships. People scared away from property market by price variations and estate agents or anyone connected to property being allowed do anything to extract max debt from you. phantom bids on biggest loan of your life, only in ireland.
Never mind a mortgage. I’d be lucky to be able to afford a bus trip to the sea
I did but another question is do those who did ever expect to be able to move?
Good call out there. I needed to raise 72k to trade up. Even selling my current property I still would have had a shortfall of around 10k. I decided against it. I feel sorry for those who decide to have families, outgrow their home then struggle to get the deposit together for a larger home which will meet their needs.
My house is my retirement fund :/
A retirement fund you paid more into than you get out i.e. interest payments or value of money in the past versus value of money now.
Bought an apt from a bank-forced sale for 1/2 what it was worth in the boom.. Now I’ve moved abroad and I rent it out #newschoollandlord
Don’t be jealous
Yeah, we’re all jealous of negative equity & a shoebox apartment.
Heehee it’s a large apartment and it’s gone up 40k since I bought it, now yer jealous
I expect to have it bought for me by my father.
#Affluence
#TheCarToo
I think I’ll wait for one of the free ones that every one else wants
Back in 1988 we moved from Ireland to London . I am still living in the same house now . The rent in this house back in 1988 was £600 per month alot then . My parents moved back to ireland in the mid 1990s . In 2000 i got the chance to buy this house after paying nearly 12 years of rent over £80,000 . When i bought the house on my own in 2000 i had three jobs so i could get a mortgage long before property price rises . Nobody in my street who own their house and have lived here for a while could not get a mortgage as they would not be earning enough . This house will be my retirement fund . I was going to sell this year and cash in and move back to Ireland but the housing market is gone a bit wobbly because of the brexit .I have many friends in Ireland and the UK who would love to own their property but as every year passes it gets harder .
Robert, the limiting factor on most people who say that they would love to own their own home is fear of the unpredictable. It gets harder as each year passes due to the fact that mortgages tend to run until retirement age, so the longer one puts it off then the more expensive it will become in monthly repayments. There is not much chance that properties will become any cheaper than they are at the monent.
If the same rates and deals where give to ordinary people home ownership would be more affordable, the current way is wrong they get all the rates and deals when things go wrong we pay for it. I cant get a mortgage yet I can some how pay back billions of debt that I did not even run up.
We need change, like the housing boom of 1930s London were the ordinary working people made for a change.
Not in this country anyway..
The poll should be; Should we need to own our own homes?
I think that better than having your own home is raising your kids to a good education, and unfortunately there are many cases where money didn’t provide this. So really doesn’t matter if you own or not, as long as the housing renting market provides accommodation at reasonable prices which will never happen in a greedy country!!!
38% yes and 32% already do? Well for some. Not in this recessionary dump I dont
No I will never own a home. Yes I work full time. I can just afford rent because I live so far away from the city. Most people want to own a home for the stability and security. Some might say owning property doesn’t offer that. But the rental market has us completely at the whim of others.
Someone has to own the home you live in. Why not the occupier rather than a vulture fund?
Alot of sacrifice has to go into saving for a mortgage, possibly house sharing for a number of years and not having a incredibly lavish lifestyle. Of course even that won’t help in Dublin where house prices are just out of reach for so many. Luckily in my circumstances Limerick has affordable 2nd hand and new properties. Finally settled to buy this year. The costs of deposit are only the start. You need to have more savings to make it a home.
I want to build my own house,but silly regulations in planning won’t let me…
I want to build my own house but silly planning regulations won’t let me…
I want to build my own house,but silly planning regulations won’t let me…
have your say