A recurring theme on here is that NAMA does NOT have the dominance in Ireland’s residential property market that is often ascribed to it. NAMA controls about 14,000 dwellings, or rather the loans underpinned by 14,000 dwellings and we were given to understand that 10,000 were completed and 4,000 were under construction. Yesterday we found out that 700 of the 10,000 have already been sold. In the Dail, the Minister for Finance was responding to a question from the Sinn Fein finance spokesperson Pearse Doherty.
Deputy Doherty asked
“if he will [provide] an analysis of the 10,000 residential properties that the National Assets Management Agency says are associated with its loans, showing the number of dwellings that are occupied and vacant; and in respect of the vacant dwellings, the number being presently offered for sale or for rent; if there are vacant dwellings that are neither for sale or for rent, and the reason such properties are being kept vacant.”
And the Minister responded
“I am advised by NAMA that it is currently carrying out an extensive analysis of data on residential property under the control of its debtors. NAMA’s best estimate, at this stage in its analysis, is that some 9,200 units are currently rented, 700 have been sold and 4,000 are vacant. This estimate is subject to additional refinement as the analysis proceeds.
I am advised by NAMA that a substantial number of the 4,000 vacant units are close to being made habitable, and will shortly be available for sale or rent, depending on the detail of the asset disposal and asset management plans which have been agreed with individual debtors and receivers.”
So NAMA, or rather its developers and receivers, have sold 700 out of 14,000 dwellings or exactly 5% since inception. And NAMA is a super-landlord in that it has under its auspices 9,200 dwellings presently rented. NAMA doesn’t say how many of its dwellings are currently for sale, but we do know that 115 homes were offered with the recently-launched NAMA “negative equity mortgage” – or “80:20 deferred payment scheme” as NAMA calls it.
NAMA does not have a dominant position in the residential market, but it does in the Irish commercial market where it controls loans underpinned by €6-7bn of property in a country which last year saw less than €0.5bn of total sales.
NAMA Wine Lake 
Jag
As the largest single owner/landlord of private on commercial it’s fair to say It has a dominance. It’s not a controller but it’s shadow is so large in what is a fragmented market it’s a quasi oligopolistic vendor. That makes its actions or inactions the main issue.
@Brian, 14,000 dwellings out of 2m in the State, 290k vacant and 80-100k vacant overhang is not insignificant, it’s just that on residential we constantly get the impression that NAMA is dominant, it’s a big player but I think dominance goes too far. On commercial it is very much dominant.
The phrasing of your title makes it sound like a positive! ‘… already sold 5%’. Hardly flying off the peg. Would be better as: ‘have only sold 5%’. It’ll be interesting to see how well they sell now they have their mortgage product in place.
@IAN, I would say the common perception would be that NAMA has been keeping property off the market, that we are waiting in anticipation for NAMA to bring its residential property to market, when it seems that sales have been taking place. 700 homes at an Irish average of €150,000 is over €1bn which is significant enough.
Interestingly NAMA is renting 9,200 properties which at an average of €1,000 per month would be €9.2m per month or €110m a year, it does mount up!
Hi NWL
I was listening to discussion about nama on the RTE Drive-time programme yesterday.
I was wondering of the 32 billion nama have until 2020 what would the interest they would be paying on that?
Is it 1% to the ECB or would it be higher?
The following question assumes its a higher interest.
If they have brought in Billions in cash shouldn’t some of that be used to pay down the capital now rather than let the interest build?
I see the logic of finishing some developments but i don’t understand how Nama can justify using this previous they have from previous sales in green field sites.
The 3 shopping centres in Laois, already approved stood out.
Also there should be an independant transparent body doing cost benifit analysis on projects nama wants to take on to make sure that there are no political decisions made with regard to the projects they choose. This is Ireland after all.
@Eamonn, NAMA pays interest on its senior debt element of the €32bn of NAMA bonds at the 6-month Euribor rate which is presently about 0.97% per annum. NAMA may hedge its interest rate exposure which may have a cost on top of this, but its basic cost is less than 1% per annum on the bonds it needs redeem by 2020. So if NAMA can find a use for its cash that returns more than about 1% per annum, then it should pursue that use in accordance with its remit to maximise the return on its assets under management.
How do the figures for unfinished properties versus vacant properties tally?
4000 unfinished properties and the remainder of NAMAs stock is all presently being rented or has been sold?
It’s a fair question because the response implies that NAMA does indeed have 100% occupancy. It would be quite weaselly of NAMA to omit to mention that some of the 4,000 homes, some of which “are close to being made habitable”, were in fact completely habitable and vacant. Very weaselly.
@ Jagdip
And the Minister responded
“I am advised by NAMA that it is currently carrying out an extensive analysis of data on residential property under the control of its debtors. NAMA’s best estimate, at this stage in its analysis, is that some 9,200 units are currently rented, 700 have been sold and 4,000 are vacant. This estimate is subject to additional refinement as the analysis proceeds.”
Is this suggesting that of the 10,000 completed units 9200 are being rented while 700 have been sold ?
This just leaves 100 completed houses which are vacant.
This seems very very high.
[…] about 14,000 residential units held by NAMA but 9,200 of them are rented out already (hat tip to NamaWineLake) and the remainder have either been sold (700) or are not ready (4,000). So what was Soden getting […]