The National Assets Management Agency will not engage in any activity that would destabilise the property market in Northern Ireland, its chairman Frank Daly said today.
Nama has loans in Northern Ireland with a nominal value of £3.35 billion (€4 billion) which represents 4 per cent of its total portfolio.
The North’s DUP Minister of Finance Sammy Wilson has previously expressed concerns that any precipitate selling of these assets could cause upheaval in the Northern Ireland property market.
“We are interested in stabilising the market,” Mr Daly insisted. “We are not interested in fire sales or dumping property or adding to the problems in the market already.”
The £3.5 billion in loans are held by 180 individual debtors in the North and is broken down as £2 billion of undeveloped land, £1 billion of investment property and £350 million of under-developed property and land.
He said Nama wanted to “devise tailored solutions” for the North. “We want to ensure that our approach is appropriately tuned for the Northern Ireland market. We have developed good relationships with policy-makers in Northern Ireland and other stakeholders and we will continue to listen carefully to what they have to tell us."
Nama may extend a new mortgage scheme to Northern Ireland if pilots it is operating prove successful, he said. Under this initiative house buyers are guaranteed that if the value of the properties drop that Nama will ensure that the buyers do not lose out financially.
