Daft Property - Irish Property News

Nama proposes negative equity scheme... Nama is proposing a deferred payment scheme to protect property buyers against the risk of negative equity in an attempt to kick-start the property market. The agency wants to introduce a scheme where Nama would waive 20 per cent of the purchase price on one of its 8,000 Irish residential properties after five years if the property were to fall further in value. Customers will deal with the banks on the scheme and will have no engagement with Nama. Chairman Frank Daly said the agency was in talks with the Minister for Finance and the Department of the Environment about the agency’s proposals. “We are teasing this through. We want to analyse the full impact of it and we would hope to make an announcement early after the summer,” he said at the launch of the agency's 010 annual report. The State loans agency, set up to take the most toxic assets out of the banking system, has loans on its books linked to 12,000 houses and apartments...

Dublin council to reduce affordable house prices... DUBLIN CITY Council is to discount its total stock of affordable homes to get rid of a backlog of 300 unsold houses that are costing the council upwards of €300,000 a month in bridging loans and fees. The council is to offer further discounts of about 25 per cent on houses it had already discounted by up to 35 per cent of the original market price to compete with developers’ discounts. Developers must provide 20 per cent of any new housing estate or complex for social and affordable housing. A discounted price for the affordable units is agreed on the market price. The discount in Dublin is generally in the region of 30 – 35 per cent. The council gives the developer names of people who are eligible to buy an affordable house. If two affordable house buyers reject the house or apartment, the council is obliged to buy it from the developer at the agreed discounted price. In a rising market, this system worked well. However, now that hou...