Lowering mortgage costs by cancelling life policies? Caution: I am not advising that anybody breaks their mortgage contract, or does this, it's just an interesting 'what if' because we are... Continue reading
Making property tax relevant to local expenditure Patrick King of Dublin City Chamber and I presented a paper to the Dublin Economics Workshop this year about how we could match a prope... Continue reading
The Consumer Protection Code 2012 (CPC) A few notes on the most up to date regulation is perhaps overdue, normally regulation is part of work and not something the general rea... Continue reading
Mortgage Activity since 2005 I thought the following chart was an interesting visual on how far the mortgage market has fallen since the peak in 2006, draw your own... Continue reading
Disintermediation – can you beat the banks with alternatives? Banks take money from depositors, lend it to borrowers and keep the difference between what they pay the depositors and what they lend ... Continue reading
Talking property tax on WLR FM We spoke to WLRFM yesterday (sound file here) about some of the contentious issues with a market value based property tax. Using values... Continue reading
‘Wat’er rip off! Yet another downside of market value based property tax Not linking a property tax to the cost of running a local authority means we will have no idea of exactly what we are paying for. When ... Continue reading
Four channels, one show, different prices – lending looking up in 2013? AIB currently have four lending channels, there is AIB direct (their branches), AIB Broker (via the Ballsbridge HQ), EBS (done through ... Continue reading
Mortgage to rent in as bad a shape as the mortgage market I think Ciaran Lynch hit the nail on the head when he said the 'mortgage to rent' scheme risks 'becoming a flop'. The issue here comes ... Continue reading