Residential mortgages at lowest level since records began, residential rents rise by 1% in January 2010.

Two snippets from the residential property market provide somewhat divergent news on how residential property is faring. Mortgage lending fell off the cliff in the final quarter of 2009 and is at the lowest level since records began – okay records only began in 2005 during what was a relative boom so not so much can be taken from that headline. The number of loans made was 45,000 of which 15,000 were for people topping up their mortgage and releasing equity in their homes (remember not everyone has negative equity and prices are only back at 2003 levels so if you bought then or before chances are you still do have equity in your home). The other 30,000 mortgages were for both first time buyers and movers and could represent as few as 15,000 homes being actually bought. Information on the number of homes bought without a mortgage is known by the Land Registry but is not released. Note the trend worsened as the year progressed.

Today DAFT.ie published their regular review of the residential property rental market. Relying on asking prices for properties advertised through its websites, DAFT have calculated that asking rents on average rose by 1% in January 2010, the first rise since January 2008. It should be noted the report is based on asking prices. Settled or actual prices are secreted away with the PRTB (who have a record of every rental agreement in the State with actual prices) who refuse to disclose such information on Data Protection grounds despite the fact they could easily hide an individual address and produce reports by region. It should be noted that prices typically do jump in January or in a downward market the fall in January is less than the trend. The following are the daft indices for the past few Decembers and Januaries.
Dec/Jan 2010                  75.4 to 76.5
Dec/Jan 2009                  89.0 to 88.5
Dec/Jan 2008                  100.6 to 101.7
Dec/Jan 2007                   93.9 to 95.7
Dec/Jan 2006                   87.9 to 87.6

The latest rise of 1.1 is equal to the rise between Dec 2007 and January 2008.

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