According to a few sources & reports released earlier this month the stock of empty homes in Ireland soared 30% in the three years through 2009 and it is now estimated there are between to 345,000 and 352,000 vacant houses in Ireland.
Bad-bank NAMA aims to buy €80billion of property loans as part of a government plan to free up lenders but has warned only one third of loans - €27bn of the €81bn to be taken over by NAMA are functioning with debtors paying money owed or at the very least some of the interest on the loan. As a result, NAMA chief executive Brendan McDonagh told the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Finance this week that it may be forced to knock down unfinished property developments outside Dublin…“We may well be faced with the very difficult decision of perhaps knocking down certain developments”. ...
On hearing this, Aoife Walsh, spokesperson for the Respond Housing Unit urged NAMA to only consider knocking down empty and unfinished houses as a last resort, “Waiting lists for local authority accommodation are rising and NAMA should now deliver on the promised social dividend… It could be argued that the only real housing market at the moment is the social housing market as private demand has been virtually wiped out," she said.
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