Statistics on cash buyers

jd1983

Hi, just wondering if anyone has any links that would provide stats on the number of cash buyers. I've previously heard figures from this site and other media that it's about 50% and that in the Dublin market it's about 90%. Although 90% seems to me to be too high to be true.

Boom__Boom

According to the Property Services Regulatory Authority, there were 4,792 properties purchased in the first quarter of this year.

The Irish Banking Federation reports that 2,068 residential mortgages were issued for the same period.

That's 57% of Q1 purchases being cash purchases.

http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/kieran-harte-once-cash-sales-are-taken-into-account-a-very-different-picture-is-painted-29453832.html

However, cash buyers of houses and apartments now account for more than half of all purchasers and are crowding out traditional family buyers.

People who are able to buy a property without a mortgage now account for 57pc of all residential sales, new research by economist John McCartney of estate agency Savills has found.

He said cash buyers were helping to drive prices up and were squeezing families who need mortgage finance out of the market.

Mr McCartney, a former CSO statistician, looked at data from the Irish Banking Federation, the Property Price Register and Savills' own residential branch network

"Some 57pc of all residential purchases in the first half of this year were made by cash-only buyers, up from fewer than 5pc in 2010," he said.

http://www.independent.ie/business/personal-finance/property-mortgages/cso-dublin-prices-soar-by-106pc-in-a-year-29612587.html

It is odd that Mr McCarney speaks of the first half of the year whereas the figures in the other article relate to the first quarter.

In fact repeating the exercise from the first article the figure for cash sales in Q2 drops to 47%

6,139 transactions from the PPR ; 3,229 mortgages from the IBF => 2,910 purchases for cash.

I couldn't find any source that breaks down the number of mortgages by geographical location, which would be needed to come up with the idea of 90% cash purchases in Dublin (Having said that I didnt look that hard & it might be possible to work backwards using clever maths & some of the CSO data) but I would strongly suspect that anyone saying that 90% of sales in any area are cash purchases would be basing this on "anecdotal" evidence as opposed to actual proper data.

Overall the market still looks a long long way from being in a normal.

jd1983

Thanks boom-boom, I'm just trying to get a feel for if the market rises in Dublin in the last year is a dead cat bounce. To me it looks as though it probably is if there's that many cash buyers. Surely these cash buyers had this money since the boom years and are buying now as they believe the bottom of the market has been reached. I'd imagine that once the bulk of these cash buyers have bought we'll see a much different market.

ted1

jd1983 wrote: »

Thanks boom-boom, I'm just trying to get a feel for if the market rises in Dublin in the last year is a dead cat bounce. To me it looks as though it probably is if there's that many cash buyers. Surely these cash buyers had this money since the boom years and are buying now as they believe the bottom of the market has been reached. I'd imagine that once the bulk of these cash buyers have bought we'll see a much different market.

Plenty of demand out there. I know plenty people with mortgage approval looking to buy but there's no where out there for them.

Villa05

ted1 wrote: »

Plenty of demand out there. I know plenty people with mortgage approval looking to buy but there's no where out there for them.

That kind of emphasises jd's point. If people with mortgages cant afford anything, people with cash are paying too much. That would imply that rises driven by cash are unsustainable and we are experiencing a dead cat bounce driven by tax incentives for property and discouraging savings.