Mortgage wars: banks battle for mortgage customers as property upturn takes hold
Lenders are cutting rates, offering sweeteners to brokers to funnel business to them, and giving borrowers incentives such as paying for home valuations in a bid to win a bigger slice of the lucrative mortgage market.
The stepping up of mortgage lending is prompted by demand from new buyers and some of the higest profit margins for home loans in Europe.
AIB, KBC, Ulster Bank and Bank of Ireland have …
UK rating fears if Scots banks defect to London
The warning that England and Wales could be negatively affected if banks carry out a threat to move south if Scots vote for independence is in contrast to most analysts who have focused on the implications for Scotland.
If lenders, including RBS and Lloyds, opt to leave an independent Scotland for England it would impact on the remaining, rump, UK’s credit rating, according to Gary Jenkins, a bond market analyst …
Nama to supply 4,500 new homes in Dublin over next 18 months
Nama will supply 4,500 housing units in Dublin over the next 18 months, said the agency’s chief executive, Brendan McDonagh.
Nama will fund and oversee the construction of houses and apartments in areas throughout the city in an effort to meet surging demand. Building has already started on 1,000 of these units.
Mr McDonagh said the agency had the potential to supply up to 25,000 residential units in sites linked …
Professional yes, but property Reits are no 'get rich quick' scheme
The establishment of Real Estate Investment Trusts (Reits) is seen as a way of achieving two important things – allowing ordinary Irish investors to get a slice of the action through regulated, professional property companies and also reducing the sector’s dependence on a coterie of personal property fiefdoms capable of practically sinking the banking system.
That is why we have three stock market-listed Reits which have floated in the last …
Howlin 'hopes' Ireland's boom and bust cycle is over
The comments come days after Finance Minister Michael Noonan said Ireland needs a different economic model as the recovery begins to broaden, focused more on steady growth akin to the Nordic and Northern European models.
Ahead of a Cabinet meeting yesterday, Mr Howlin said the State had made remarkable progress after having gone through the most difficult period of economic recovery in the history of the state.
“What we’ve done …
Brendan Keenan: Asking if there is a property bubble is the wrong question
To paraphrase Zhou Enlai, it may be too early to say. But the Irish economic question is exhibiting the same symptoms. Just as we seemed to successfully negotiate the Crash, the question changed.
Or rather, an old question re-appeared. Is the economy, and particular the property market, in danger of overheating? Should the government be taking steps to cool it – even, merciful hour, increasing stamp duty on buy-to-let properties …
Thousands in line for Standard Life payout
The payment is worth close to €1,000 each for an estimated 60,000 Irish shareholders.
These people ended up with shares in the Edinburgh-headquartered company when it de-mutualised, and floated on the London Stock Market in 2006.
Now the insurer has sold its Canadian division, and plans to pay €2.18bn of the proceeds of the sale back to the shareholders.
A spokesman for the company said the windfall would work out …
Kenny praises 'patriotism' as Guaranteed Irish hits 30
Speaking at a celebratory lunch in Dublin yesterday, Mr Kenny said: “I’m sure there are many here who will remember as clearly as I do when this concept started out some years ago.
“It made us sit up and take notice way back then, its message was about an innate sense of quality, of faith, of confidence and indeed of trust, the sense that by watching the iconic Guaranteed Irish …
Pressure on employers as job vacancies rise in August
Compared to July, 4pc more jobs were available in August.
In some sectors firms are struggling to fill jobs because of the gap between salaries on offer and the pay expectations of some in-demand specialists – that gap is especially true in engineering. However, the numbers of professionals seeking jobs has also increased since August 2013, by 9pc to 8,930.
That’s according to the latest Monthly Employment Monitor published by …
IBEC: 'Slash taxes to lure emigrants home to work'
Its 2014 Consumer Monitor, while portraying an economy firmly in recovery mode, said the flood of 20 to 35-year-olds risks bringing progress to a grinding halt.
And the Government can afford income tax cuts of €300m in the upcoming budget.
This age group is the only one in which emigration and joblessness is still rising.
The Government must prioritise cutting income taxes to entice these people back to Ireland, the …