Sinn Féin says abolishing the Help-to-Buy scheme will be good for first time buyers – is it right?

• Published date: 05 May 2024
• Author: Cliff Taylor
• Publication title: Irish Times: Web Edition Articles (Dublin, Ireland)

First, figures from the banks showed that the number of new mortgages approved for first-time and second-hand buyers and the amounts drawn down are both well down on the same time last year, partly due to the dire level of supply in the second-hand market. This fall in activity, the wheel-spinning, may also indicate that more and more would-be buyers are finding themselves priced out

Second, the crisis in the rental market rolls on, with rents up by more than 9 per cent year on year according to this week's Residential Tenancies Board figures. As in the second-hand market, we also see a crisis of supply, as landlords pull out and fewer new tenancies are registered. This market is stuck, too.

And third, an Economic and Social Research Institute study confirmed that household size in Ireland remains one of the highest in the EU. The relatively young age of the Irish population is a key factor here, but so too, is the shortage of housing in general and also of appropriately sized homes for smaller families or single people.

It is definitely not free cash. Buyers are often not considering the implications of having a State stake [in their home], the costs of servicing it in future and the price of buying it out

It is quite the backdrop for the general election debate on housing. And one issue is going to be central to the row. It is the two big supports for first-time buyers to help them financially – the Help-to-Buy scheme, which offers a tax refund of up to €30,000, and the First Home Scheme, in which the State takes an equity stake in the property to help tackle the affordability gap.

Battle lines here are already being drawn. New Taoiseach Simon Harris has said he wants to see the Help-to-Buy scheme, due to finish at the end of next year, extended for five years, in effect for the term of the next government. The Government sees it as an essential support to buyers. The newer State equity scheme is another way to help purchasers jump the gap between what they can afford and new house prices. Both apply only to first-time buyers of new homes.

On the other side of the argument, Sinn Féin has promised to abolish both schemes, arguing that they push up prices generally and distort the market and that resources need to go instead into boosting supply, particularly of social and affordable homes. An interesting point will be how the party spells this out in its general election manifesto. Will it go for an immediate end to both supports for buyers, or some kind...