First-time buyers: Prospective first-time buyers gave a mixed reaction to the measures in the Budget aimed at helping them buy a home, writes John Downes
Mark Kelly (29) an IT worker from Donegal, who has been saving through an SSIA for a deposit on his own home in Dublin, felt yesterday's Budget would do little to help his situation.
"[Mr Cowen] has doubled mortgage relief. Doubled sounds good and reads well in the papers, but in reality it is not a huge increase," he said. "I'm still going to have to look at a house which is an hour or an hour and a half from where I work."
"I'm going to be renting [in Dublin city centre] for a fair while longer. I did notice the increase in rent relief. To be honest, that's probably the biggest difference to me, as it's going to save me money."
He said that Mr Cowen's assertion that any stamp duty cuts would more likely than not be incorporated into the sale price - thereby ending up in the pocket of the seller - was probably correct if it was applied to all property buyers. But the fact remained that the failure to address the issue had done little to help him, as a prospective first-time buyer.
"I have saved part of my deposit through an SSIA. I probably would have had my deposit at the price of property when I started saving. But the fact is this has gone up so much in the past three years that I don't anymore."
Teresa Leneghan, a 29-year-old medical representative with a pharmaceutical firm in Dublin, was hoping that this year's Budget would help her get her foot on the property ladder.
"The mortgage relief is welcome. It is double what it was. But I just wonder after the ECB rise how much it will really impact, and will that almost negate what I gained from the interest relief. It almost certainly will."
Ms Leneghan, originally from Co Mayo, said she is "almost certainly" facing the prospect of buying with a friend, rather than buying her own two-bed apartment outright and renting the second room, as she had hoped.
"Really and truly, at the end of the day, I just feel I'm the same as I was last week. I'll get a mortgage, but I don't think I'll get what I want or to live within the area where I want to live."
Nadine Crotty, originally from Monaghan town, purchased her Dublin 8 apartment in June of this year. As a health promotion officer with the National Youth Council of Ireland, which has campaigned extensively on behalf of first-time buyers, she watched yesterday's Budget with particular interest.
While the doubling of the 20 per cent mortgage relief for single first-time buyers such as herself, from €4,000 per year to €8,000 per year, was welcome, she expects upcoming interest rate rises by the European Central Bank to counteract much of the benefit of such increases.
"I'm happy with the measures introduced, but I think he could have done a lot more," she said. "There should have been more mortgage relief, and the Budget should have looked at things like taxes on the cost of living, such as bin charges or water rates."
"It is new first-time buyers we need to be looking at. There is nothing in this for them, really."
Helen Gahan, a 24-year-old primary school teacher who moved into her own house in Ratoath, Co Meath last year, was surprised at the doubling of mortgage relief for first-time buyers who bought properties in the past seven years.
As a result of the move, Ms Gahan can avail of the extra relief for approximately five and a half years. "It is a big jump. I wasn't expecting it at all until my dad rang and told me," she said. "But bills and mortgage rates are constantly going up. For example, with my gas bill, there has been a huge difference this winter."
"It is a huge help and I'm grateful . . . I wasn't expecting it to be backdated, or to be so specifically for young people. But there is still nothing being done for, say, my friends who haven't got onto the property ladder."