"Central Bank figures 'overstating' number in mortgage crisis "

Brendan Burgess

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An interesting article (by Laura Noonan?) in today's Irish Independent


Certainly the issue of legacy arrears overstates the problem, but I have no idea of how much these are. I would have thought that they were a very small percentage of the overall.

If someone falls into arrears and then agrees a restructuring - they could be making the agreed restructured payments, but still be in the arrears stats due to the legacy arrears. This would explain why so many of those who have restructured are in arrears. The restructuring hasn't failed, it's just that they waited until they went into arrears before restructuring.

However, a much better measure would be the number of people who have paid less than the interest on their mortgage over the past 12 months. This would be a real measure of difficulty.
 
I was thinking along the same lines. Retail sales are picking up and you don't hear as many people complaining about finances. Also the tracker mortgage rates of 2% are helping a huge number of people pay mortgages that if on a regular rate of 4.5% - 5% would be crippling.

The bulk of unemployment is in the younger male category and those who really really want a job are getting jobs - probably not what they wanted, but the attitude of many is a job is a job and better to be in one than not.

Maybe, just maybe, the light at the end of the tunnel can be seen.
 
Brendan Burgess said:
However, a much better measure would be the number of people who have paid less than the interest on their mortgage over the past 12 months. This would be a real measure of difficulty.
Click to expand...

That would be a good measure.

Though there's quite a difference between fewer new cases falling into arrears as opposed to the total number of cases in arrears. Despite the fall in new cases, it's conceivable cases going into arrears still exceed those coming out of arrears.
 
Stephen Kinsella from University of Limerick responded to the piece

Devil is in the detail where mortgage crisis is concerned


 
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