Buy Now or Hold Off?

Kintarō Hattori

For the last few years myself and the GF had wanted to buy our own place but the prices being charged were silly, besides it was cheaper to rent than have a mortage in most cases. It's gotten to the stage now that having a mortage is considerably cheaper than renting. Currently we're paying €1100 a month for a detached 2 bedroom town house. A bigger place in and around the city centre would be around €700pm in mortage repayments and that would be before mortage relief is taken into account.

We have 6 months left in our current place and over the past year prices have in most cases dropped quite considerably. So the big question is, what are the predictions? Are prices set to fall furthur or are they bottoming out? Do we take the plunge and try and buy in 6 months or so or do we hold off for another year and see where the economy/housing market is?

What's the best way for myself to keep informed, apart from reading this forum. What paper(s) have the most informative property section. Are there websites I should be reading?

gurramok

You know my answer on the prices front

Anyway, you say its cheaper to have a mortgage than renting. The serious flaw with this is interest rates. If you take out a 25yr mortgage, ask yourself how long those super low interest rates will be available for the duration at 700 quid per month?

You can try the 5yr 3.86% rate from AIB for example which is decent i admit. However, what will the rates be for the rest of the 20yrs? The probability is that it will be higher. God forbid if you take out a 30/35yr mortgage.

Overall, my view is that the prices will continue to plummet for next 2 years at least(watch the economy & availability of credit & supply as sample factors). If you do buy now, will you be raging if you are in neagtive equity in a years time and above all will you be raging that you could of bought a 3bed for the price of a 2bed?

PS - see my sig

SparkyLarks

First off
what will your rent be next year you should be able to negociate a discount
you should look at a 25 year mortgadge really
and factor in for at least a 5% intrest rate.
and another 10 to 20 % price drop

Also can you see your self in this house for the next 10 to 15 years as ther is a real chance that that could happen.

However as someone who bought a house last week, if you are happy with the house and do the work looking at all the options, then work away. It all depend on how much you are willling to pay to own your own home. But do the work look at the prices, look at the intrest rates, they were very recently at 5%+ and will go up to that again.

That is worth a lot to some and very little to others

Freddie59

Kintarō Hattori wrote: »

Are there websites I should be reading?

www.thepropertypin.com

www.treesdontgrowtothesky.com

www.irishpropertywatch.com

www.irishhometruths.com