Dr Brendan Williams at UCD has confirmed to me today that their report into vacant homes in the State which was heralded last week by the Irish press, will be published online by the end of February 2010. Co-incidentally this is still the public estimate of when NAMA will buy the first loans (“The Point of No Return”).
Today, Bank of Ireland finally sought legal proceedings to foreclose on a substantial residential property loan. All being well for BoI it will have possession of the property assets in the next 1-2 months and they can then presumably be placed on the market. Why it has taken so long to recover the property is unclear. And it seems to this author that there have been precious little recovery actions so far (compared with the many 10s of €billions of loans advanced – NAMA loans were estimated to be €68bn for example). The effect of this perceived tardiness is the supply to the market of these property assets has been delayed and therefore prices paid in the market place today, particularly at the consumer end, are artificially inflated. Surely this is not an intention on the part of the banks?
The stay on repossessions and the large number of mortgages that are being restructured (30,000 reported last week) all defer these properties coming on the market as distressed assets which would have the effect of reducing prices more. Are banks being led by social altruism or are they waiting for NAMA to make the first payments and get past the Point of No Return?