Rebuilding Ireland Home Loan Scheme

QUESTION

To ask the Minister for Housing; Planning and Local Government the number of applications received for the Rebuilding Ireland home loan scheme by county; the number of successful applicants by county; the amount issued to date by county; the interest rate applied in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter.

REPLY

As with the previous local authority home loan offerings, loan applications under the Rebuilding Ireland Home Loan are made directly to the local authority in whose area the property proposed for purchase is situated. My Department therefore does not directly collect information on the number of enquiries to local authorities regarding the loan or the number of  loan applications received by local authorities.
As is currently the case, my Department will continue to publish information on the overall number and value of (i) local authority loan approvals and (ii) local authority loan drawdowns.  Information up to Q3 2017 is available on the Department's website at the following link: http://www.housing.gov.ie/housing/statistics/house-prices-loans-and-profile-borrowers/local-authority-loan-activity, and this information will be updated on a quarterly basis as additional data is compiled.
The Housing Agency provides a central support service which assesses valid loan applications that are made to the local authorities and makes recommendations to the authorities as to whether loans should be offered to applicants.  I have asked the Agency to centrally compile figures of the numbers of applications that it has assessed.
The most recent figures, as at the end of May, indicate that the Agency had received a total of 1,499 applications for assessment from local authorities, 1,150 of which were deemed to be valid. Of these valid applications, 876 have been assessed and 52% of the valid applications that have been assessed by the Agency have been recommended for approval.  It is subsequently a matter for the relevant local authority credit committee to ultimately determine whether a loan application is approved, having regard to the Agency's recommendation and other relevant factors.
While the Housing Agency do not collate information on a county-by-county basis, they have provided data on the number of applications received on a regional basis. Of the 1,499 applications received to the end of May, 619 were from the four Dublin local authorities, while 540 were from the local authorities in Cork, Galway, Kildare, Louth, Meath and Wicklow, which comprise the local authority areas where the purchase price limit of €320,000 applies. The remaining 340 applications were from the other local authorities where the lower purchase price limit of €250,000 applies.
Applicants have the choice of three rates of interest under the terms of the scheme. These options are 2% fixed for up to 25 years, 2.25% fixed for up to 30 years, or 2.30% variable (subject to fluctuation) for up to 30 years.