Central Bank Warns On Mortgages
A report in the Irish Times based on a Central Bank letter, warns that increased mortgage lending may jeopardise the wider economy. It fears that “house price bubbles and bursts, unsustainable credit growth and systemic financial crises have often accompanied each other”.
They use the metric of new mortgage lending compared to household disposable income may rise from its current 6.7% to 8%. However only a few days ago the Central Bank was warning that house prices may fall as supply increases.
And if house prices do fall, then average mortgage lending will also fall.
It seems to this writer that, being in the depths of the worst housing crisis our country has ever faced, we need more (and more affordable) housing and we need mortgages to buy them.
The Central Banks recent predictions on 21,000 houses this year and 28,000 next year seem to me to be optimistic. On the ground in the market there is a huge question as to sufficient land being available, enough trained personnel to build them and the ability of the various Councils to provide the roads, drains, sewerage, schools etc.
It is the easiest thing in the word for a public body to tell us what we can’t do, what we need is our Public Service and our Government to get over these issues and to ensure our citizens hae access to affordable housing. It is, after all, a basic human right.