 Recent trends are revealed in Northern Ireland Housing Statistics |
The number of homes repossessed by mortgage lenders in Northern Ireland has gone up by more than 25% over the last year. In the year 2003-2004 they increased from just under 1,700 to more than 2,000.
The figures come from the Department for Social Development.
Siobhan Harding of the Citizens Advice Bureau said there were a number of factors which had led to the increase in repossessions.
"The recent rises in interest rates has meant that those people who have borrowed up to their limit financially are starting now to struggle with their debts," she said.
"The recent climate of favourable borrowing here, employment and disposable income have all boosted the credit market.
"Low interest rates have meant many people have been tempted to quite dangerous levels of borrowing.
"All of those factors combined together have meant that people are very vulnerable to even very small changes in their circumstances."
However, she said the primary piece of advice for anyone in debt was not to panic, but to address the problem.
The department said statistics on action of mortgage repossession were produced by the Northern Ireland Court Service.
"As the parties involved can often negotiate a compromise, not all such actions lead to eviction.
"The figures cover both the private and public sectors and relate to both domestic and commercial properties," it said.
Private sector
The recent trends in housing are revealed in Northern Ireland Housing Statistics 2003-04, a report published by the department. Among its key findings are:
There were about 679,200 dwellings in NI at 31 March 2004, a rise of 6,000 (1%) on March 2003 Owner-occupied dwellings accounted for 494,200, - 77% of total occupied stock (641,400) More than 9,500 residential planning applications were granted, an increase of 4.6% on 2002-03 More than 13,800 new dwellings were started during 2003-04, of which 92% were commissioned by the private sector More than 17,000 households presented as homeless, a rise of 4.4% on 2002-03 The total number of Northern Ireland Housing Executive tenancies decreased from 102,834 at March 2003, to stand at 96,507 at 31 March 2004.
The number of dwellings sold by the executive decreased by 6.3% from the previous year, to 5,770 for 2003-04.
The average price of new National House Building Council-registered houses sold during 2003-04, was �108,000 - an increase of 10%, said the department.
One-Minute World News 
News services
E-mail this to a friend 
Printable version 
As the parties involved can often negotiate a compromise, not all such actions lead to eviction 
