Responding to the most recent CSO Residential Property Price Index, IPAV, the Institute of Professional Auctioneers and Valuers, has noted that while more rural areas continue to show higher growth figures, residential property prices in the commuter belt have increased minutely, with premiums in the capital down 0.9 percent.
Pat Davitt, Chief Executive of IPAV said there are serious underlying problems around affordability and access to mortgages.
“But it’s good to see more imaginative solutions now being talked about following the general election. There is no way we can build the 340,000 homes the Central Bank estimates we need up to 2030 without something very different happening.
“The ESRI recently identified the key issue of the price of building homes needing to be driven down. The challenge to politicians is how that aspiration is going to be turned into an outcome,” Mr. Davitt stated.
IPAV says there is a lack of transparency around building costs and has called for an official index charting all building input costs.
The Institute has also called for the Central Bank loan-to-income threshold for mortgages to be increased to 4.5 times income for those on up to €50,000 a year. Many such people find themselves having to pay very high rents but could well afford mortgage repayments which would be much lower.
