Perfect Property has recently found success in finding the common budget of the average house hunter in Dublin.
While in such a crisis, this is information that has been found is essentially vital in understanding a piece to the puzzle of what keeps buyers from buying.
Of course, there are statistics on the shortage of homes compared to the increasing demand, a factor into understanding the crisis that is just as vital.
According to Perfect Property, a relatively new search engine, the average Dublin house hunter has a budget of €315,000 to purchase a home with.
A pretty substantial budget for any home buyer, however, we are still observing a vast amount of first-time buyers applying for the new state mortgage scheme, introduced just a few months prior.
A scheme that was expected to cover nearly 1,000 loans and last for an extended period of time is now lucky if it lasts the full year.
Of course, when looking in the Dublin area it can be expected that the budget for a home will be higher as the overall cost of living is generally higher.
The average budget for Dublin will also be skewed higher, if not due to the increased cost of living, but also because there is an observed four percent of individuals who are participants in the search in which have a budget of €1M and an additional one percent of house hunters with a budget of €5M. This, causing the overall average to increase in their favor.
It is also vital to note that this search does include some apartment hunters as well. Approximately one in four participants are looking to move into apartments over houses in the subjected locations.
Perhaps, the budget for these home-buyers is set so high due to their anticipation on receiving the state mortgage scheme that could essentially help them borrow up to 90% of the properties value from local authority at surprisingly low-interest rates.
The average loan through this scheme is expected to be €200,000 and fund nearly 1,000 home purchases.
With such high demand for the scheme that has been accruing it is, however, likely that the funds will run out far too fast and will not be able to cover all of the purchases expected.
It is no coincidence that the most applications for the housing scheme have been received by the counties with the highest home demand.
These counties including, Finglas, Swords, Tallaght, and Malahide.
The research conducted by perfect property is also suggestive of the fact that one in four house hunters are looking to buy properties with renovation potential.
This is a direction the market has been going in for some time now as first time buyers look to make homes “their own” as well as to keep costs down.
The scheme is primarily targeted to first time buyers with low annual salaries. So, to say that all of these applications are causing for the increase in home budgets is not necessarily the cause of one or the other.
Overall it is found that borrowers can get through all required implications and still take out a loan up to five times their current income. Quite a substantial multiple.
