Have banks eased lending criteria??

Lyn256

I've noticed over the last few months that houses seem to be selling in my area (West Dublin) including houses that have languished on the market for 2+ years.
Now nothing seems to have dramatically changed economically so whats happening?
One theory I've had is that people are just biting the bullet-fed up renting and have just bought.
However recently I'm starting to wonder have the banks eased their lending criteria.
My friend has just sold her house-the buyers have gotten a negative equity mortgage and she now has also gone sale agreed on a property-her circumstances are such that I was in serious doubt that she would get a mortgage but AIB came through in the end.

So any ideas/theories anyone??

jmayo

Lyn256 wrote: »

I've noticed over the last few months that houses seem to be selling in my area (West Dublin) including houses that have languished on the market for 2+ years.
Now nothing seems to have dramatically changed economically so whats happening?
One theory I've had is that people are just biting the bullet-fed up renting and have just bought.
However recently I'm starting to wonder have the banks eased their lending criteria.
My friend has just sold her house-the buyers have gotten a negative equity mortgage and she now has also gone sale agreed on a property-her circumstances are such that I was in serious doubt that she would get a mortgage but AIB came through in the end.

So any ideas/theories anyone??

Might be that people are wising up and dropping their asking prices ?

Lyn256

jmayo wrote: »

Might be that people are wising up and dropping their asking prices ?

Not sure its that-I've noticed that prices now are about the same as jan this year . . .

djimi

Big difference between asking price and the price the place actually sells at. The advertised price may remain the same but perhaps now people are prepared to negotiate in order to make the sale whereas before they were holding out for the asking price?

dufferlover

Prices have dropped. As djimi said, there's a big difference in what places are actually going for. Earlier this year we had an offer on a three bed semi accepted but it later fell through. At the moment we have an offer of a four bed detached place in the same estate that has been accepted and it's much lower than what we had accepted for the three bed semi-d earlier in the year.

Islander13

Lyn256 wrote: »

I've noticed over the last few months that houses seem to be selling in my area (West Dublin) including houses that have languished on the market for 2+ years.
Now nothing seems to have dramatically changed economically so whats happening?
One theory I've had is that people are just biting the bullet-fed up renting and have just bought.
However recently I'm starting to wonder have the banks eased their lending criteria.
My friend has just sold her house-the buyers have gotten a negative equity mortgage and she now has also gone sale agreed on a property-her circumstances are such that I was in serious doubt that she would get a mortgage but AIB came through in the end.

So any ideas/theories anyone??

Bank Lending is a product of two things, supply and demand. Despite all the media chatter about banks not lending, a large reason why sales dried to a halt was becuase people were also reluctant to borrow for the obvious reason that there's lots of macro uncertainty about the economy and euro and micro uncertainty about their jobs.

Over the last 6 month maybe I've sensed a recovery in some confidence so people in areas where there is some visibility in prices (mainly dublin and surrounding) people are no longer afraid to buy.

Banks are keen to lend to good credits, problem is in Ireland at the moment, there's a shortage of good credits