Houses for sale in an affordable housing scheme in Co Kildare are priced above the threshold of what the State deems affordable in its local authority home loan scheme.
Eight new homes at Lattin Place, on the Rathasker Road in Naas, went on sale on Wednesday with prices ranging from €295,000 for a two-bed house, €365,000 for a mid-terrace three-bed house and €370,000 for an end-terrace three-bed property. As of 3pm on Wednesday there had been over 100 applications for the eight homes.
The house price limit for State-backed mortgages under the local authority home loan scheme is €360,000 in Co Kildare.
Two working families with two children each and who have approval for the local authority loan are locked out of these affordable purchase homes, because the price of the three-bed homes is above the purchase price limit of the loan scheme.
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Sandra Rowe says she and her husband are “really, really frightened for the future” and is calling on the State to increase the threshold on the loan scheme.
The couple, who both work full time, were refused a traditional mortgage through a bank because their income was too low. They are currently renting a house in Naas with their two children – a 12-year-old boy and a nine-year-old girl.
“The rent is crazy, and we have no stability here. The biggest thing you want as a parent is stability for your children, and we thought the local authority loan and the affordable housing scheme would be our pathway,” Ms Rowe says.
Similarly Aishling Conway and her husband have also been locked out of the scheme, with Ms Conway saying “it’s quite strange that they’re advertised as affordable housing, but then on their own mortgage, you can’t even get it”.
The couple, who both work full time and have two young children, a six-year-old girl and a two-year-old boy, were unable to secure a traditional mortgage from a bank because of their ages – they are both in their mid-forties – and so applied for the local authority home loan scheme.
They have been house hunting for almost four years and had been hoping to avail of the affordable homes at Lattin Place.
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“It’s quite frustrating, especially with the way the market’s going. At the moment, you bid on a house, and it just shoots up. One house we bid on jumped €9,000 in eight minutes, and it kept going up and up because two parties were bidding against each other,” Ms Conway says.
The couple have very recently gone sale-agreed on another three-bed home in Naas for €320,000, and acknowledge they are “very lucky” to get a house in the town for that price.
Local Independent councillor Bill Clear has been assisting local families in securing schemes to help them on to the property ladder, but says this situation is particularly frustrating.
“There is a silo in operation here, this is a Department of Housing loan, and a Department of Housing affordable purchase scheme – but the two aren’t talking to each other. It is another abject failure of this Government,” Mr Clear says.
Both Ms Rowe and Ms Conway are “stuck in the middle”, he says.
“They are all working, so they’re locked out of social housing, but yet they’re on too low of pay for the house prices in Naas. They are the working poor.”
The homes at Lattin Place are a “small drop in the ocean” of what is needed in Naas, Mr Clear says.
There is another affordable housing scheme coming up at the former Devoy Barracks site in the town, which will have 219 units when completed.
Prices for the first phase of the Land Development Agency project, due to launch in 2025, have not yet been released.
Mr Clear, however, believes the project will be “massively oversubscribed”.
He says he is “so frustrated and angry” at the situation.
“There is no data on people like this stuck in the middle. There are some homes in Kildare now with three generations living together, it’s not only children living at home, but grandchildren are there now too. It’s not right,” Mr Clear says.
Ms Rowe will be one of those waiting on the Devoy Barracks scheme and calls on the Government to either increase the threshold of the local authority loan scheme, or to ensure the affordable homes fall within their price range.
“The one thing that we need as a family is either the threshold to be made higher or the affordable homes to come in at the threshold that has been set. That’s what we need and what we’re hoping for. We’re putting all our eggs in the basket for this one,” Ms Rowe says.
Without that, the future is uncertain for Ms Rowe and her young family.
“Myself and my husband are really, really frightened for the future. We know these houses [at Devoy Barracks] are coming up soon but we’re just petrified now that if the prices are higher than what Lattin Place is, or if they come in at the same price, and the threshold isn’t made higher – then we’re in big, big trouble. Our hands are completely tied.”
