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Affordable Housing in Galway City

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  • 18-10-2010 12:57pm
    #1
    dolphin city
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,210 ✭✭✭


    I see that the council are going to have to slash the prices of affordable housing in Galway to try and sell the houses now. About time. They were selling for higher than the houses on the open market. Does anyone actually know how they affordable housing section works in Galway? Or is it just a numbers game, shuffling the numbers around to suit themselves.


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    #2
    yawlag33
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7 ✭yawlag33


    I'd be interested in knowing as well!


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    #3
    dolphin city
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,210 ✭✭✭dolphin city


    would also like to know if there is actually an affordable housing list anymore. If they put the houses on the open market to sell, it must mean that people on the affordable housing list did not take up their offer, so were they then kicked off the affordable housing list?


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    #4
    yawlag33
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7 ✭yawlag33


    Here's the list I found, not many properties and the prices are nuts!!

    http://www.galwaycity.ie/AllServices/Housing/FormsandGuidelines/070910_04.doc


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    #5
    dolphin city
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,210 ✭✭✭dolphin city


    thank yawlag - what I meant by list was, if there was an affordable housing LIST OF PEOPLE left - if the houses are on the open market it means the affordable housing list of people refused them (can you blame them) and so would probably have been kicked off the affordable housing list. by right, there should be NO affordable housing list left, because they would have been kicked off for either refusing the houses (can you blame them) or not being able to afford the houses. Or I like option three best - because they have more sense than to be conned by the council.


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    #6
    Krieg
    Registered Users Posts: 2,378 ✭✭✭Krieg


    200k and they call it "affordable"?
    If anyone is interested in the houses listed, the last 2 in Reilean have been bought but the rest are still available.

    I wonder if the council are still buying houses to put out as affordable. I thought the whole scheme would be brushed under the carpet while the country is in debt and I cant imagine the council has much money to spend.

    Might be a good idea if the NAMA owned houses were given to councils and added to the affordable housing scheme. At least then they wouldnt be sitting dormant.


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    #7
    dolphin city
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,210 ✭✭✭dolphin city


    they were trying to sell off an underground basement at a cost of 240 a couple of years ago - yes, underground - imagine them wanting somebody to live underground for the next twenty years - didn't even match the affordable housing scheme - I think they bought it from a developer thinking they could put an affordable housing applicant into it and they would be grateful. :rolleyes:


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    #8
    mike kelly
    Registered Users Posts: 1,110 ✭✭✭mike kelly


    time for the council to rename this scheme as "expensive" housing. "Affordable" is a ridiculous term anyway.


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    #9
    soundbyte
    Registered Users Posts: 445 ✭✭soundbyte


    dolphin city wrote: »
    I see that the council are going to have to slash the prices of affordable housing in Galway to try and sell the houses now.

    They already have cut the prices. A good while back. By law, they can only cut them between 15% - 25% below the Open Market Selling Price, but they are being "encouraged" by the Dept to keep the haircuts at 20%.

    Not sure how they can justify their current prices based on OMSPs that are constantly changing (downwards).

    See here:
    http://www.galwaynews.ie/8335-city-council-039fire-sale039-slash-property-values


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    #10
    tribesman78
    Registered Users Posts: 199 ✭✭tribesman78


    mike kelly wrote: »
    time for the council to rename this scheme as "expensive" housing. "Affordable" is a ridiculous term anyway.

    From my understanding these are considered affordable due to the fact that this is the final price you will have paid on the house. If you were to buy a house on the open market for 200K using a bank over 35 years you would actually end up paying in excess of 400K due to interest. Hench these are considered affordable.


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    #11
    dolphin city
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,210 ✭✭✭dolphin city


    sorry,but if you are offered an underground basement flat for nearly quarter of a million euro on the affordable housing scheme (only in this corrupt country would you get this), you still have to go to the bank and get the mortgage like everybody else. They tried to say that 240 thousand was LESS than what the cellar was worth - they tried to say it was worth more but the affordable housing people were getting it at a bargain at 240 thousand. An affordable house does not exempt you for paying interest - it is supposed to give you the house at cost price - but you still end up paying interest like everyone else on your mortgage - you only get the house at cost price or what they deem to be cost price.

    Also in order to get an affordable house in Galway you had to have a deposit of nearly 50,000 Euro depending on where you wanted the house. I mean if people had a spare 50,000 Euro lying around under the mattress, do they honestly think that they would be applying for an affordable house.
    :rolleyes::rolleyes:


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    #12
    Krieg
    Registered Users Posts: 2,378 ✭✭✭Krieg


    tribesman78 wrote: »
    From my understanding these are considered affordable due to the fact that this is the final price you will have paid on the house. If you were to buy a house on the open market for 200K using a bank over 35 years you would actually end up paying in excess of 400K due to interest. Hench these are considered affordable.

    Nah you still have to source a mortgage and pay interest. The idea is that the council buy a house at 300k and sell it to someone at half that price.


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    #13
    Bobeagleburger
    Registered Users Posts: 45,454 ✭✭✭✭Bobeagleburger


    yawlag33 wrote: »
    Here's the list I found, not many properties and the prices are nuts!!

    http://www.galwaycity.ie/AllServices/Housing/FormsandGuidelines/070910_04.doc

    LOL at those prices.

    Those places are only worth half that.

    Not affordable housing list I think


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    #14
    dolphin city
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,210 ✭✭✭dolphin city


    do they think people are stupid.


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    #15
    Mrs OBumble
    Registered Users Posts: 25,936 ✭✭✭✭Mrs OBumble


    I can't quite remember the details, but have a feeling that the Council are between a rock and a hard place on this one.

    The rules of the affordable housing scheme were developed during a rising property market, with very low unemployment. The economy has changed drastically, but the council have a bunch of houses that are caught up in the crossover (built/purchased before things really crashed, trying to sell 'em now after they have). Ireland also has this aversion to landlords (ye would rather people were receiving a subsidised council house than getting the cash so they could rent from a private sector landlord), and funding that means that the government (ie taxpayer) ends up setting stung sometimes.

    At the end of the day, it all comes down to demand and supply.


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    #16
    dolphin city
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,210 ✭✭✭dolphin city


    JustMary wrote: »
    I can't quite remember the details, but have a feeling that the Council are between a rock and a hard place on this one.

    The rules of the affordable housing scheme were developed during a rising property market, with very low unemployment. The economy has changed drastically, but the council have a bunch of houses that are caught up in the crossover (built/purchased before things really crashed, trying to sell 'em now after they have). Ireland also has this aversion to landlords (ye would rather people were receiving a subsidised council house than getting the cash so they could rent from a private sector landlord), and funding that means that the government (ie taxpayer) ends up setting stung sometimes.

    At the end of the day, it all comes down to demand and supply.

    justmary the rules were very specific - a new house specifically designed to be affordable (this was after the introduced the loophole where a developer did not have to set aside a portion of an estate to affordable/social - instead they give the govt some money and who knows what happened to it after that) offered to the list at cost price. Instead of that they were purchasing from private owners and top rates and trying to sell them off to affordable housing people for exorbitant prices. This was not the aim of affordable housing. Neither was it the aim that they build ghetto's. Its a numbers game - nothing do to with providing the public with what they need - if it was then the hundreds of empty houses around the city would be lived in.


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