If there is a forced sale of his property that will surely set a real market value.
My opinion now of this whole mess is that the banks should be allowed to fail. Instead we will have NAMA making a totally false high value on assets that are impossible to value, then the price they will set will drop further for years to come and NAMA will then sell them to the current lot of failed developers who will be loaned the money to buy them back from surprise surprise the current corrupt bankers. What a nice cosy circle. The bankers, developers and bank shareholders will be the net gainers along with FF, all the best of friends. Hurray. A lovely merry go round and everyone back in the FF Galway tent in 20 years time.
Hi,
Nobody enjoys the fact that the country is run by a cartel, but allowing the banks to fail is in nobody's interest. Similarly, allowing the developers' assets to be fire- sold would be an unqualified disaster for the average home owner and for the future of consumer spending in Ireland.
It is true that in 2006/2007, house prices were crazily high, but the current valuations are similarly crazy. Any house that is selling at the moment is at a price determined not by any measure of intrinsic value, but by the constricted credit supply.
At the bottom of the American property crash, you could buy a house in Detroit for $10,000. This is no more a real- world valuation than €400,000 for a semi- d in Balbriggan.
Let's not forget that house prices and consumer spending are two sides of the same coin. If the developers assetes were fire- sold, house prices would really collapse. As home owners we will all have to claw back our personal equity at a rate of 3% per annum, and it's quicker to claw back a 30% drop than 80%.
Every percentage drop in house prices is another period of time it will take individual Irish people to recover from this crisis. Some young civil servants may get a cheap house out of the scenario, but I think only a very small pool of us possibly could benefit relative to the potential damage to the business community who tend to be more endebted.
As a relatively young homeowner I'm already in serious negaive equity. What ACC bank want to do to our economy will flood our property market with under- priced houses and we will all suffer. I want to borrow in the future, I want to develop my small business and employ people. How will I do this if I am in even deeper negative equity.
The NAMA recipe is flawed, and it protects the same panel of favourites who helped cause the problem, but I really don't see a real alternative. This is an Irish problem, and the Government have cooked up an Irish solutution which deserves a chance to work.
Of course the Banks, foreign and domestic, deserve their money back; but not at the expense of our government's ability to effectively implement a solution to this situation.