RESIDENTS IN a Dublin estate were yesterday evening still digesting the news that two houses in the area would be included in the Nama deferred mortgage payment plan.
Louise Kelly, who has been living in the Browns Barn Wood off the Naas Road in Dublin 22 for four years, shook her head in frustration at yesterday’s announcement which she had first heard about from her parents when picking up her daughter after work.
“At first I felt sick because, although this is our home and we’re not looking to make anything out of it, there’s no such thing as family holidays or luxuries. Any time either of us are free, we’re looking to do overtime,” she said.
“It’s 7.15 and I’m coming in the door from work. [My partner] is still at work . . . He comes in and I go out and we just pass each other. Our backs are against the wall,” Ms Kelly said yesterday.
The two properties included in the Nama scheme are priced from €335,000. The couple paid more than twice that for their house four years ago.
“Everybody’s the same,” she said. “We’re going to be still running out the door with no quality of life at 60 years of age . . . whereas are going to be enjoying life and settled. I think for them, yeah, someone has to start doing something, but there has to be something for the people that got nailed on the properties that were overpriced.”
She said that she would love if the scheme allowed one set of her neighbours currently renting to buy property in the area: “I would definitely not be angry at them, but I’d be angry towards the country.”
Gareth McKeown, who has lived here for 3½ years, had a similar reaction to the scheme. “That’s great for people that’s buying now. But where does that leave the people like us who paid €620,000?” he asks, before pointing to another house in the estate which he said went for over €750,000.
Residents of a Cork housing estate where Nama’s 80:20 deferred payment initiative will be piloted expressed similar sentiments. Three houses will be offered for sale in Ardfield, Grange, near Douglas, a development built by Fleming Construction shortly before the company went bankrupt.
Carl O’Mahony (32), a non-commissioned Navy officer, bought his three-bed semi-detached home for €340,000 in 2007.
“I bought at the worst time. This news is a bit of a kick in the teeth. It’s disappointing. I’d wish the new owners of these houses all the best. They are the lucky ones. We just paid way above the odds,” he said.
Banks and the Government have a responsibility toward homeowners in negative equity, Mr O’Mahony said, because the situation is the result of reckless lending. But his expectations are low.
Primary school teacher Mary O’Shea, from Ardfield Drive, welcomed Nama’s new pilot scheme as a “great idea”. But she admitted her attitude would be different if she planned to sell her home. “I’d rather see those houses lived in, they have been idle for four years. Having said that, it would be a different kettle of fish if I was selling,” she said.
For the mother of a young son who bought her home in Ardfield for €275,000 in 2005, negative equity of about €100,000 is a trap. She lives with her husband and young son but did not wish to be named.
“I’d prefer to sell and move closer to my family but I can’t. It has crossed my mind to just hand back the keys but that’s not really an option either. We are lucky because we both have jobs but, like many families around the country, we are stuck,” she said.
