First Time Buyers

Shanemc87

As a First time buyer im looking for advice on saving and applying for a mortgage! It would also be great if you could share your storys about buying for the first time. I live in dublin and looking at the price it seems near impossible to buy a house as a FTB with the ridiclious prices at the moment.

Any advice would be smashing

Cheers

Boards.ie: Niamh

Moved to Accommodation & Property forum, please read their charter before replying.

gmisk

Regular savings and regularly paying rent is the key....as much as possible for 6 months minimum.
You can go to a mortgage broker, but I found it pretty easy to go directly to banks.
I would recommend signing up to estatements (like with BOI), it means you can instantly print bank statements when you need them for applications.

I have been looking in Dublin for 3 years......good luck........

cookiecakes

We bought in February having gone sale agreed in November in Dublin. We weren't paying rent and the bank didn't really care. All they wanted was proof of a minimum of 6 months regular savings. They did look at our bank statements in great detail and queried the odd payment, especially when money was coming into the account, but it was as the advisor looked through them and not the underwriters themselves.

They were very interested in payslips too. Mine are broken down into different rates for teaching and they wanted to know what each rate was and which hours were guaranteed etc. The same with my husband's bonuses. We went with Ulster Bank and found them really good. The advisor gave us a full stress test and went through our average spending on everything based on our statements but we were happy with it as we certainly didn't want to get in over our heads.

We had 2 sets of savings at the time as we were also saving for our wedding. The savings for our house were more than our mortgage payments are so I think that also went in our favour. I would suggest getting your savings going and make sure you save a significant amount every month. Also set up a savings account specific to the house and try not to go near it. If you can save any extra, that's great but try not to reduce the amount.

Good luck with it!

D3PO

Shanemc87 wrote: »

I live in dublin and looking at the price it seems near impossible to buy a house as a FTB with the ridiclious prices at the moment.

You do realise that home ownership is a privlidge and not a right ? Not everybody should be able to buy their own home.

Sounds harsh but in a properly functioning property market there will always be a portion of people priced out of the market to buy (not that Im saying the market right now is properly functioning)

El_Dangeroso

D3PO wrote: »

You do realise that home ownership is a privlidge and not a right ? Not everybody should be able to buy their own home.

That's a little bit harsh on the OP, no where did they say they were entitled to anything.

He's just making the same observations that most have made, prices are a bit nuts in Dublin at the moment, close to boom prices when you factor in that tracker mortgages are no longer available.

D3PO

El_Dangeroso wrote: »

That's a little bit harsh on the OP, no where did they say they were entitled to anything.

He's just making the same observations that most have made, prices are a bit nuts in Dublin at the moment, close to boom prices when you factor in that tracker mortgages are no longer available.

I did say it was harsh. Just needed to add it for some balance when people start to talk about it being impossible to buy.

It will never be possible for everybody to buy, it will be even less possible for people to buy the hosue they want in the area they want its just an economic fact.

Im not trying to argue that we have a properly functioning market just adding an observation.

D3PO

El_Dangeroso wrote: »

close to boom prices when you factor in that tracker mortgages are no longer available.

Above boom prices with that factored in TBH.

Right now I could buy my house for 50k less than I paid for it in 2005. That said the mortgage would be almost double what Im paying.

The_Conductor

Ok- lets get back on topic. D3PO- I accept what you're saying- and can see where you're coming from- lets move on though- its not helpful to the OP.

murph226

Is there any discounts or incentives available for FTB's at the moment?

The_Conductor

murph226 wrote: »

Is there any discounts or incentives available for FTB's at the moment?

No.
First time buyers- are the exact same as any other buyers.
Some lenders may offer very slightly more favourable terms to them- but its marginal at best.
The era of favourable tax treatment and inducements for first-time-buyers is long gone.

At present- there are so many people living and trying to bring up families in unsuitable accommodation- that were an inducement scheme of some manner to be brought in- it would end up in court- as discriminatory, as it would exclude the tens of thousands who arguably have a stronger case to be made to assist them to move- than do first-time-buyers..........

At the end of the day- government interventions in the housing market- have been an unmitigated disaster- they have quite a uniquely atrocious record for market distortions- do we want to go down this road again?