Oh dear, the nature of “personal guarantees” and “bankruptcy remote” SPVs beginning to emerge in NAMA banks

We may find out soon how INBS’s loans will be treated by NAMA in the coming days but today’s “revelations” in the Independent really should not come as any surprise to those in the property business and discussed in some detail here weeks ago. I presume there is a typo in the line “The National Asset Management Agency will not apply a far larger discount on Irish Nationwide than any other institution to reflect the nature of its lending and equity participation deals, particularly into the UK” and the ‘not’ should read ‘now’. Anyway we should find out in the coming days what the haircut on the first tranche is proposed at.

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“with values such as this, it is increasingly difficult to see prices going much lower”

So says a mortgage broker involved in selling a scheme of 28 apartments in Mullingar for between €69,950 for 1-bed, 48sq metre, apartments to €82,450 for 2-bedrooms to €98,000 for 117m 3-bedrooms. The scheme is in the hands of a receiver and not one of the 28 apartments has yet been sold.

To this author, the prospect of paying €130/psf for an apartment in a distressed scheme in Mullingar with unspecified management charges and uncertainty over neighbours and empty units, I don’t see much difficulty at all with seeing prices going lower, much lower.

To take a look at the development and its advertisement on DAFT click here.

UPDATE: According to the Independent today, all 28 flats sold over the weekend and indeed an additional 18 were sold presumably from a new phase of the development. Whilst there is debate over the size of the excess potential supply in the State, there is no doubt that it is significant and against our population changes (the latest statistics would indicate a marginal increase in 2009/10, the lowest in 20 years) we may get a better picture of supply and demand for housing later this year.

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