NAMA to sell its first apartments direct to the public next week

Nearly 21 months after the agency was legally established, it seems that NAMA will next week sell its first residential property in Ireland. I say “seems” because NAMA generally doesn’t provide information on its sales (the off-market Montevetro sale was an exception) and you can’t dismiss the possibility that NAMA has sold some house or apartment, somewhere to the general public. And remember that developers whose loans may have been acquired by NAMA didn’t stop selling property in their own name just because their loans were absorbed by the agency. But next week, according to the Irish Times today, NAMA will launch in its own right what are considered on here to be its first apartments inIreland.

The apartments are in the Beacon South Quarter in Sandyford, south Dublin. You will find quite a lot of background information on the development here where a sale by NAMA of 58 apartments in the same development to a housing association, Cluaid, was reported two months ago. The development is most associated with developer Paddy Shovlin, one of the first developers against whom NAMA moved in 2010, foreclosing on property and obtaining liability orders in Dublin’s High Court.

The sales to Cluaid in July 2011 indicated prices of €250-300 psf. The launch next week will reportedly include 13 apartments in a building in the large mixed-use development called “the Tower”. As noted with the sale of the 58 apartments to Cluaid, these units appear to be high-spec and the apartments on offer next week are over 1,200 sq ft in size and have “en suites with double sinks, walk-in wardrobes and built-in coffee machines in the bedrooms”. The selling agent is not mentioned by the Irish Times but Simon Coyle at Mazars is the receiver. It is not clear at this stage if NAMA will launch its much-vaunted negative equity mortgage product to coincide with the launch. Details of the sale including selling agent, management fees, accommodation have been requested from the receiver and will be posted here as an update if they become available.

Although NAMA doesn’t generally provide details on its sales, there is a dedicated page on here which attempts to draw together all reports (17 to date) of NAMA sales.

UPDATE: 15th September, 2011. The receiver has advised the selling agent is DTZ Sherry FitzGerald and I see that the apartments are now listed on the Sherry FitzGerald website here but prices are not given.