Nama home buyers move welcomed

The recent Nama announcement of its 80/20 Deferred Payment Initiative is surely welcomed by all nervous home buyers as it clearly guarantees against up to 20% of house value loss within five years.

Anyone who has had the pleasure of dealing with Nama over the last few years knows that Nama do not give anything away for free.

Bearing this in mind, the able advisors in Nama must now feel very secure that they simply will not lose out over the next five years.

With the cost of second hand houses in many cases now being significantly lower than a typical rebuild cost of a similar-sized home, the launch of this initiative from Nama must be the best sign yet of house prices at last looking like they are reaching the bottom.

The only difficulty now for the buyers able to raise lending is that they will not know for certain that the house market has hit the bottom until at least 6 months after it has done so.

Frank Hannon

North Gate Bridge

Cork