Frank McDonald - "NAMA - Bad news for developers".

[DaveM]

Bad debt agency may be scaffold for property developers - The Irish Times - Sat, Apr 11, 2009

Frank McDonald is hardly a cheerleader for FF or the developers and his piece is yesterday's Irish Times spells out why NAMA is bad news for developers.

The game is up for developers who lost the run of themselves, writes FRANK MCDONALD


DEVELOPERS WITH large loans from the banks are set to lose out big-time as a result of the Government’s decision to establish the National Asset Management Agency (Nama) to deal with the mountain of bad debt racked up in Ireland’s deflated property bubble.

Eamonn Gilmore and Joan Burton in particular kept trotting out the line that NAMA is the latest attempt at some kind of developer bailout. This is just populist, innuendo driven hot air and it lends substance to the argument that Labour have no ideas, they're just opposed to everything.

[hopi watcher]

Bad debt agency may be scaffold for property developers - The Irish Times - Sat, Apr 11, 2009

Frank McDonald is hardly a cheerleader for FF or the developers and his piece is yesterday's Irish Times spells out why NAMA is bad news for developers.




Eamonn Gilmore and Joan Burton in particular kept trotting out the line that NAMA is the latest attempt at some kind of developer bailout. This is just populist, innuendo driven hot air and it lends substance to the argument that Labour have no ideas, they're just opposed to everything.

Incorreect, there is plenty of scope for this agency to act in the interests of developers. It is vitally important that all these concerns are teased out so that it does not do that by default. Labour are perfectly correct to do what they are doing on this issue, they are after all an opposition party and good opposition challenges policy that is not clear in it's intention. Given what has gone before, nothing this government proposes should be allowed to fly without root and branch scrutiny.

[DaveM]

hopi, robust opposition is a good thing but it should be underpinned by ideas. Opposing evrything for the sake of it is of no benefit to anyone and the way Labour are adopting this approach at the moment is reminiscent of Bertie in opposition in the 90's and CJH before him.

[youngdan]

Anyone that thinks the government will turn a profit even if they wait a million years is dreaming, unless the euro crashs of course. The article mentions the selling of the bonds. I will tune into that sale for a bellylaugh

[hopi watcher]

hopi, robust opposition is a good thing but it should be underpinned by ideas. Opposing evrything for the sake of it is of no benefit to anyone and the way Labour are adopting this approach at the moment is reminiscent of Bertie in opposition in the 90's and CJH before him.

You are now generalising. Labour is an opposition party with it's own agenda and policy and therefore it will find itself at odds with most of what this government will be doing. On the specific case you raised, presumable as a cover to bad mouth Labour, the fact remains that this agency needs to have everything very tightly battened down before it slips into the woodwork to work in backrooms etc. Labours actions here, in the circumstances, are at the very least, prudent

[DaveM]

You are now generalising. Labour is an opposition party with it's own agenda and policy and therefore it will find itself at odds with most of what this government will be doing. On the specific case you raised, presumable as a cover to bad mouth Labour, the fact remains that this agency needs to have everything very tightly battened down before it slips into the woodwork to work in backrooms etc. Labours actions here, in the circumstances, are at the very least, prudent

hopi, the manner in which NAMA will handle these issues has yet to be seen. For example we don't yet know the value at which they will purchase the bad debts and we don't know who will run the organisation. Yet in the immediate aftermath of its announcement, with a lot of the detail yet to be publicised, Labour labelled it as a "developer bailout". How could they do this? That's not prudent opposition. That's a populist generalisation which I do not regard as constructive debate. Contrast that with FG. At least they have articulated what their approach would be in a fair bit of detail on a range of issues and Richard Bruton in particular has set himself apart from the crowd both through the ideas he puts forward and his understanding of the problems being faced.

I have no desire to bad mouth Labour. On occasion I've voted for some of their candidates in the past. However taking the populist stance instead of attempting to be constructive does not impress me or many others.

[TradCat]

Fianna Fail are involved and developers are involved. If anyone isn't extremely suspicious then they have not being paying attention.

Labour are doing their job.

[hopi watcher]

However taking the populist stance instead of attempting to be constructive does not impress me or many others.

The point remains that Labour are in opposition and they, and many others, have lost all trust in this governments capacity to deal with our problems fairly and evenly. Everything emanating from the ngovernment must be thoroughly scrutinised. The fact that most, if not all, Developers have been very generous donaters to Fianna Fail cannot be taken out of the equation either.
Regarding the comparison between the approach of Fine Gael, you do realise of course that aside from the nuts and bolts of things, their policy is a mirror image of Fianna Fail/PDs.

[Limerick Lad]

According to Lenihan NAMA will take ownership of loan-defaulting properties at discounted rates, seek to sell those properties either now at current depressed prices or at some time in the future when property prices revive and keep pursuing defaulting developers for outstanding debts.
His assurance that all borrowers will be required to meet their full legal obligations for repayment seems a little hollow because once NAMA seize the loan-defaulting property, which in many cases seems to have been the only security against development/property loans banks looked for in the heady days of the property bubble, the developer will have fulfilled their legal obligation, any other assets these developers have which were not secured against that particular loan will remain untouched.

[marmurr1916]

Many of the developers have given personal guarantees for these loans, meaning that their personal assets have been secured against loans.

At least that's what the developer interviewed in the Irish Times article claims.