Talking Property

Stingy banks should keep clients happy with a view to the future, writes Isabel Morton

NOW THAT John Rocha has finished the silver suits for our Olympic athletes, he might consider designing military style khaki uniforms for Irish bank officials. These will no doubt be accessorised with thick black belts from which the keys of repossessed properties will jangle.

It took a while for the word to trickle down through the banking system, but now that it has, the bankers are turning nasty. And it is not just the big builders and developers who are called into banks to account for themselves and their unsold developments. The average dabbler in property is now in line for a "little chat" with their bank.

Gone are the days when you might make a breezy call to the manager about remortgaging your home in order to help with the cost of a family wedding, provide the deposit for your adult child's first step on the property ladder or to build aextension. Gone utterly are the days when you might have had a call from a honey voiced banking official asking if there was anything they could help you with, any investment advice you might need, anything at all.

No, your bank manager will not be able to assist you any more, because he has been given a directive from on high, to avoid handing out a single euro unless absolutely necessary.

Banks are no longer lending money for building and development. This is blatantly obvious when you notice the number of unfinished projects around the country, from abandoned infill schemes in the suburbs, to mothballing on a grand scale (such as the shell of a highrise in Sandyford wrapped in fabric printed with pictures of apartments).

The same applies to the average home. The banks will not be inclined to let you spend hundreds of thousands of euro extending and renovating when the value of your property has dropped so significantly .

Meanwhile, waiting in the wings are astute, cash-rich folk who have faith and belief in our economic recovery, but are just waiting for the right moment to swoop. Estate agents are already receiving calls from such individuals who are actively looking for "fire sale" properties. They are only interested in bargains, which they will then sit on until the economy recovers.

One investor tells me he has been "snapping up a few bits and pieces here and there".

He was referring to development land with planning permission, which had to be sold on at a loss, because the banks would no longer fund the development.

Who knows, we could even see the arrival of buyers from growing economies such as Russia, China, India and the Middle East.

Meanwhile, the credit crunch has made it virtually impossible for most of us to get a mortgage and those who have the money are too terrified to spend it.

When buyers do appear out of the woodwork, they are treated with suspicion by estate agents, who practically insist on obtaining copies of their mortgage offers, which must be dated within the previous few weeks.

Any offers made outside that timeframe are considered subject-to-change and so are considered unreliable.

And how things have changed in the estate agency business. The glamorous housewives who used to host the open viewings on Saturday afternoons have long since been let go. Now you are far more likely to find senior negotiators and directors showing you around. Never has access to such people been so easy.

So perhaps it's no harm that the banks are having hysterics. The sooner the cloud bursts the better. Let it rain, let it pour. And let's have it over and done with, so that we can get on with life. The suspense is killing us.

But this time, the banks could do well to remember that handing out a few umbrellas today might at least ensure that they have clients left when the sun shines again tomorrow. How about some John Rocha designer brollies printed with the individual bank logos and the slogan - "X bank shelters me on rainy days".