From Sean Kelly.
I WRITE with reference to the news (JEP, 24 July) that a 25% deposit will be required to buy a flat or a house following the pullout of Jersey Home Loans.

This means that for the basic three-bedroom house you will require a deposit of £125,000 before you can even start to look at a mortgage.

Jersey house prices in general are without doubt overinflated. The three-bedroom properties we have viewed so far this year for asking prices of up to £500,000 are simply not worth the money.

Two-bedroom houses are a waste of time if you want to have more than one child, and who are they kidding when they say ‘two- or possibly three-bedroom’? Does it mean that you can stick a bed in the dining-room? Some two-bedroom houses have asking prices above £300,000, and this is without parking or even a garden. I wouldn’t even describe such accommodation as a house.

Flats are another example of an overpriced market.

Many of the new flats we have viewed can only be described as G-Plan, cheaply built, condensed and tiny.
The share transfer market in another overpriced market.

Many of these flats are already dilapidated as they had been converted from old houses or even guesthouses back in the days of the 1980s and 1990s.

Nobody who has any common sense should part with such large sums of money to buy something which these days isn’t even freehold.

Let’s not forget that they are also taxing share transfer properties now. So despite what estate agents say, how can it be possible for flats to gain value over the coming years when they can’t even sell the ones they have got?

In fact I would be surprised to see some of these new developments still standing in ten to 15 years, simply from the quality of the building work to date.

The housing market in Jersey is overpriced in all areas and a near impossibility for many first-time or even second-time buyers to look at.

Another interesting point is that the interest on mortgage relief is now being tapered down by 20% per annum to zero in the year 2012.

We are told that a 25% deposit is required, GST is already biting the incomes of many, together with 20 means 20 taxation — and let’s not forget the credit crunch.

Who in years to come will be able to afford the current prices for property?

All I can say is that only an estate agent or a fool will tell you that properties are reasonably priced in Jersey at the moment.
Holmhurst,
Queen’s Avenue,
St Helier.