Nama says it may begin lending to property buyers

The National Asset Management Agency (Nama) is to explore ways by which it can lend to property buyers in an effort to restart the ailing property market.

Chairman Frank Daly said the agency saw it as part of its “brief” to generate transactions in the market.

However, Mr Daly warned that many sellers still retained unreasonable expectations of the prices that can be realised now and in the foreseeable future.

“The only way that the market can be lifted out of its four-year hiatus is by generating transactions at whatever prices buyers are currently willing to pay."

Speaking at the launch of the new Society of Chartered Surveyors Ireland in Dublin today, Mr Daly said he wanted to begin talks with Bank of Ireland and Allied Irish Banks immediately on the provisions of mortgage financing. He said the agency had resources while the banks need liquidity for home loans and there is a need to be "creative" in terms of providing mortgages.

Nama has spent €30.5 billion to date on acquiring property loans with a total face value of €72.3 billion from some 850 debtors.

Mr Daly said the agency has set a deadline for the end of this month for 145 debtors with a combined debt of about €34 billion to submit business plans. He said it will take enforcement action if they fail to meet the deadline or take the process seriously.

He said Nama will shortly be taking enforcement action against 30 of the largest developers whose debts had been acquired by the agency and whose business plans were deemed "not viable".

Some developers, he said, were attempting to prolong the process as much as they can while not dealing with the issues. “It is likely that we will end up enforcing against these debtors in the near term.”

Mr Daly said he believed the bulk of the decline in property prices had already occurred. However, he predicted residential property values may still “have a little more to fall” compared to their commercial counterparts which had already dropped by 60 per cent from their 2007 peak.

On the issue of upward-only rent clauses, he said while there was merit in the arguments for getting rid of the contracts there was a “substantial risk” that a retrospective ban on existing contracts would give rise to litigation which could prolong the current stasis in the market.

Insisting he was not commenting on Government policy, Mr Daly said the current uncertainty surrounding the State’s financial future needed to be removed as quickly as possible. “Whatever decision is to be made should be made quickly so that the market can digest it and move on."

A spokesman for the Department of Finance gave a cautious backing to Nama‘s intervention.

“The Government’s primary objective is to support economic growth,” he said. “Sustainable economic growth requires a property market that is functioning normally and this can only happen where there is an adequate and sustainable level of credit provision.

“This is the objective of the Government’s recent banking announcement, which has been well-received internationally.”

The Society of Chartered Surveyors Ireland is the result of a merger between the Society of Chartered Surveyors and the Irish Auctioneers and Valuers Institute.

Mr Daly questioned whether the former bodies could have been more vigilant in assessing the enormous systemic risk that created the property bubble. “The two bodies should have signalled some concern that what was taking place was unsustainable.”

Mr Daly proposed the new society undertake a critique of the performance of the profession during the boom so the lessons could be learned for the future.