FG to abolish stamp duty for first time buyers!

I heard on the radio last night that Fine Gael are proposing to abolish stamp duty on second hand properties for FTB's if they get elected.
I'm not a big fan of FG, but I'd vote for them purely for this reason alone.

Is anyone else proposing the same?

Piggy, sounds a little too good to be true, imagine all the income revenue would be loosing from stamp duty on a second hand house (even if it was a FTB). Sounds like the 2000 extra gardi promise from the coalition last time round...........pure electionerring me thinks.

You could well be right stobear.
That reminds me...they also promised to bring back the FTB grant thingy and an SSIA type scheme.

You'd have to say though...if they went in on this platform and then pulled out of it they'd be lynched by every FTB in the country.

I believe they promised to abolish it on houses under 400K
that would have an interesting effect on prices. If you go
1 euro above 400K it will end up costing you thousands,
so we could get a defacto price cap for certain types of houses.

I'll believe it when I see it. Before the last election FG were going to compensate Eircom shareholders. Labour have promised €1000 for every child (which unless I'm very much mistaken will cost in the region of €50 to €60 million a year.

And then both of these parties have the brass neck to accuse FF of buying elections!!!!!

I'm worried by Piggy's comment that she'd vote FG just on the basis of this. Because Piggy strikes me as a fairly intelligent kind of person. Falling for this con just encourages them to out bid each other with bigger lies next time out.

These wasters don't even have the decency to buy the election with their own money. They buy it from us with OUR money. And we keep handing it to them on a plate.

If you're a FTB, start saving and look after yourself, you're not going to get any help from a government any time soon.

The only way things like Stamp Duty and VRT will be reduced, is if a party can get a handle on the wasted millions, and start running the country as if money actually had a value.
None of the current crop seem interested in that issue.

-Rd

Labour have promised €1000 for every child (which unless I'm very much mistaken will cost in the region of €50 to €60 million a year.

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Not our finest hour, I have to admit. Apart from the cost issue, do you really want to put 3k (the real value after 18 years invested) into the hands of an 18 year old? You are unlikely to get great value for money there.

"I'm worried by Piggy's comment that she'd vote FG just on the basis of this. Because Piggy strikes me as a fairly intelligent kind of person. Falling for this con just encourages them to out bid each other with bigger lies next time out."

Hi daltonr,

First off...thanks.

Secondly...it's he by the way
Piggy scratches himself, farts and belches.

I might have been a bit hasty in saying I'd vote for them purely for that reason. I'm buying a house at the moment...albeit a new one with no stamp duty. It really opens your eyes to the disgrace that is stamp duty...especially for FTB's. It's hard enough to get a deposit together, let alone the extra 10k for stamp duty!

You could be right though...maybe it's all lies and false promises. I wouldn't be surprised. However, if they do go out on this limb and promise this AND get elected because of it...they'd want to deliver, else you'd be talking civil war I'd imagine.

However, if they do go out on this limb and promise this AND get elected because of it...they'd want to deliver, else you'd be talking civil war I'd imagine.

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Given that FTBs would generally be on the younger side of the adult population and given that its been said alot of younger people aren't noted for having a huge interest in voting and also given that FTBs (whilst frequently talked about in the media) aren't necessarily a huge % of the population I don't know that there would be the civil war and uproar you talk of. Afterall when the FTB grant was abolished there was only a limited amount of stink kicked up about it.

I do agree with your opinions on stamp duty btw and I'm only on the property ladder a couple of years myself. I have alot of sympathy with FTBs who have to fork out thousands on this tax.

"I think that, far from calling for its abolition, we would should be campaigning for its extension to new houses."

How fair is that??
A lot of FTB's are forced into buying new homes just to get away from stamp duty. If they had to pay stamp duty they'd either have to go into more debt to afford a property or forget about buying altogether.

Incidentally, when was the last time the stamp duty rates were reviewed?
Considering that house prices and earnings are not growing at the same rate, 3.75% of a house's market value today is not the same as 3.75% of house values in the past. Not even close.

> Given that FTBs would generally be on the younger side of the adult population and given that its been said alot of younger people aren't noted for having a huge interest in voting and also given that FTBs (whilst frequently talked about in the media) aren't necessarily a huge % of the population I don't know that there would be the civil war and uproar you talk of. Afterall when the FTB grant was abolished there was only a limited amount of stink kicked up about it.

Yeah - but all the mammies and daddies who are eager for their mollycoddled brats to get on the property ladder will probably be cute to this one though!

Piggy,

Precisely.

Not having stamp duty on new houses causes a distortion in the market - one from which the developers (and not the hard pressed buyers) are profiting.

Stamp duty is just an elemnt of the price buyers have to pay. If it is introduced, the sellers will have to drop their prices or (as you say yourself) there will be no deal.

Stamp duty is neither the cause of, nor the solution to, high house prices. But the current system simply puts money into the hands of the developers of new houses that could otherwise have gone to the state (i.e. to you and me).

"Stamp duty is just an elemnt of the price buyers have to pay. If it is introduced, the sellers will have to drop their prices or (as you say yourself) there will be no deal."

Given that it's new houses we're talking about that'd be developers you're talking about.
Do you really think developers would bother dropping their prices because of stamp duty?

What's happening right now? People are just getting themselves more and more into debt...that's all.

"Yeah - but all the mammies and daddies who are eager for their mollycoddled brats to get on the property ladder will probably be cute to this one though!"

Someone got out of the wrong side of the bed this morning

No. That's my view every day in recent years.

So anyone trying to get on the property ladder is a mollycoddled brat then?

No. But many of the ones whose parents go out on a limb to subsidise/finance their house deposits or purchase and often squirrel away their life savings (including PPR) in order to pass it on when they croak often are. Seems to me that too many children in this country can't/won't stand on their own two feet even after they have reached full grown adulthood whatever about maturity. But that's another discussion altogether I guess...

Why not just think of stamp duty as a front-loaded property tax?

It has the considerable merit of the amount involved being certain - which more conventional property taxes don't (i.e. you buy your house with no idea of the amounts of money that future governments will relieve you of simply because you are the (frequently only partial) owner of an asset from which you are deriving no direct financial benefit). Anybody who pays stamp duty, on the other hand, enters into the liability with full advance warning.

The state costs money to run. Stamp duty is inherently fair - you pay it at a level proportional to the value of the house you wish to buy.

I think that, far from calling for its abolition, we would should be campaigning for its extension to new houses.

"But that's another discussion altogether I guess..."

I suppose it is, but now that we're here...

"But many of the ones whose parents go out on a limb to subsidise/finance their house deposits or purchase and often squirrel away their life savings (including PPR) in order to pass it on when they croak often are. Seems to me that too many children in this country can't/won't stand on their own two feet even after they have reached full grown adulthood whatever about maturity."

Most of the people I know got a help buying their first place. 5 grand here...ten grand there. I don't know any parents who've whittled away their life savings on their mollycoddled kids though. I'm not saying it doesn't happen...I'd just be surprised if it was all that much.

When my dad bought his first house in the 60's he was working in a lowly paid job, and his mortgage represented less than 30% of his income. He was the sole contributor to the mortgage as my mum was at home raising us lot.
I'm in a relatively well paid job and I'm paying 50% of the mortgage which represents slightly less than 30% of my income.

"Do you really think developers would bother dropping their prices because of stamp duty?"

Yes I do. If they could get more out of buyers, they would be doing that already. With the imposition of stamp duty those buyers would be able to afford a lower (you could call it 'net') price to the developers, who would be forced to take the lower price or nothing. (It really doesn't matter to the buyer - they'll pay the same amount as currently ie. what they think the house is worth to them.)

I disagree. Another 10k on top of new homes would not mean people would not buy them, just struggle to afford them. I think you underestimate the greed of developers in this country.

Houses in Dublin are now going for 300k. There are loads and loads of new developments with hundreds of houses being built where ever you turn.

For someone to buy a house, they have to stump up 30k+ deposit, and be on at least 50k salary to get a mortgage. This is for an 'average' house.

Can anyone see where this is going?

'bubble' and 'burst' spring to mind...