New Homes: All eyes watching demand-side initiatives, while supply side lags behind

The Central Bank admits that initiatives like their mortgage measures "have both benefits and costs to society"

The impacts of the relaxing of mortgage lending to four times the salary of first-time buyers, effective since January 2023, will be closely watched in the following months,

There is much delicate balancing to be done in any housing market, and no more so than in Ireland’s case where relieving the strain on one side can cause unexpected or even ‘expected’ outcomes on the other.

No-one is more aware of this than the Central Bank, which last October loosened the tap of finance into the mortgage housing sector, which it had tightened up on back in 2015 when house price inflation was once again picking up, as was housing supply.