The National Asset Management Agency (NAMA) has today welcomed the proposed publication by the Property Services Regulatory Authority (PSRA) of residential property sales prices. 

Speaking in Dublin at the International Governing Council meeting of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, NAMA Chairman Frank Daly said greater transparency on prices would be positive for the residential property market. 

Greater transparency would improve buyer confidence, said Mr Daly. This would in turn facilitate a more efficient property market and also be good news for sellers of residential property, he said. 

Mr Daly said the commercial property market could also benefit from improved confidence if the proposal was extended to this sector. 

“We favour extending this proposal to commercial property sales transactions because we believe that transparency would enhance the efficiency of that market also,” he said. 

The NAMA Chairman also reiterated the Agency’s intention to make €2 billion in vendor finance available to prospective buyers of commercial properties controlled by NAMA debtors and receivers.  Referring to the scale of the commitment, the NAMA Chairman said:“€2 billion is a substantial injection of capital.  To put it in context, Ireland’s commercial property market saw just €200 million worth of investment last year.  At the peak of the market in 2006, investment levels reached €3 billion.  The €2 billion is not, of course, restricted to Ireland but these figures give you a sense of the potential contribution that NAMA vendor finance can make in the Irish market”. 

However, Mr Daly warned that, while market-based mechanisms could help reinforce the emerging signs of stability in the Irish property market, these mechanisms are not a panacea; “Recovery will ultimately be anchored in economic and financial developments here and internationally”, he said.

Note to the Editor

Vendor Finance: Vendor Finance is where the purchase of a property from the Agency is financed by (1) an upfront payment to the Agency of say 25% of the purchase price and (2) the balance [+interest] paid to the Agency over a period of years.   Benefits for NAMA include replacing a debtor’s loan with a smaller loan to a better quality debtor, receipt of 25% [or more] of the sale price up front and a diversified and improved credit risk.

A full copy of the NAMA Chairman’s address to the RICS is available in the publications section

Back