NAMA’s list ‘cut price’ properties

DUBLIN’s National Asset Management Agency has published its ‘house of horrors’ list in an attempt to recover loans doled out to north coast property developers during the boom.

The NAMA list includes a public house at Park Street, Coleraine.

The licensed premises changed ownership a number of times before planning permission was granted for a mixed use development, including apartments, in 2008.

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A southern bank coughed up more than £2 million in loans and fees for a speculative redevelopment of the site.

When the boom went bust, the deal turned sour faster than a pint of the ‘black stuff’ and the property is now understood to be worth less than £400,000. Belfast’s Osborne King & Megran Ltd is taking best bids for the property.

NAMA is also hoping to sell a development site at the town’s Greenhall Highway, close to the Carthall roundabout, and a separate industrial site, set out in multiple units, at Letterloan Road, outside Macosquin.

The agency’s list includes a pair of ‘wow factor’ houses on Portstewart’s Strand Road.

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They will be offered for sale at a price far below the ‘dizzying’ big ticket price of 2007.

The ‘trophy’ homes have remained empty for three years with just a layer of salty sand blasting their values down through the floor.

Someone with a professional interest in golf, with cash at the bank, might be best placed to acquire two for the price of one, as Belfast’s Pricewaterhouse Coppers attempt to sell both properties.

The Republic’s financial meltdown spilled over into Northern Ireland’s property market during 2008, Numerous high profile developers subsequently lost their businesses, helicopters, fast cars, homes and the proverbial ‘shirt off their back’.

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The injection of cheap European money into the Republic’s banking system has been blamed for fueling its speculative property bubble.

Anglo Irish Bank was a major player in Northern Ireland’s property market, lending tens of millions for speculative ‘pie in the sky’ schemes. Anglo Irish Bank was wound down by the Dublin government during 2011.

AIB’s Northern Trust subsidiary was heavily exposed to the province’s property bubble. AIB’s shares are now majority owned by the Irish State.

Bank of Ireland has avoided State control although it too required Irish government investment to protect savers and its balance sheet.