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ULSTER BANK HAS pulled the trigger on a the sales process for Irish loans worth around €1.7 billion.
Property website CoStar Finance reported today that the RBS subsidiary has hired US heavyweight Eastdil Secured to sell the loans, which are secured on 315 properties.
The majority of the portfolio is located in the Republic of Ireland, with the balance north of the border, and a smattering of properties around the rest of the UK.
The loans, which will be drawn from Ulster’s pool of non-performing loans, are mainly linked to housing, apartments, office, mixed use, retail and industrial assets, as well as some land banks.
Last month CoStar reported that four bidders are fighting it out for another portfolio of Irish assets. Final bids on the €1.2 billion Project Achill are expected in the coming weeks.
Activity
Property Industry Ireland Director Peter Stafford said that the sales process is typical of a number of transactions that have gone through in Ireland recently.
“What we’re starting to see is interest from the last couple of years from domestic and international investors translating into activity.”
The volume of transactions has increased enormously in 2013 and 2014. It fell hugly when rents and yields dropped at the end of the Celtic Tiger, which meant that Ireland moved off the radar for a lot of investors.
He said that investors are constantly looking for assets that will pay a guaranteed rate of return without costing them too much, and with many Irish deals meeting these criteria at the moment.
There’s a mobile international market searching the world for that sweet spot, and Ireland is in it.
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So what will happen to those who have problems with their mortgages if these loans are sold off to loan sharks?
They come round and break a finger for each month your late on your payments
@Kerry….sure that’s someone else’s problem (insert self-satisfied grin here)…..and sure everything the banks do is ‘legal’ and very very complicated…..so complex in fact that we wouldn’t understand and shud stop asking questions
I guess if you can’t pay the loan that you voluntarily took out and promised to repay with the risk of losing your house if you didn’t that you do indeed lose your house.
Yes, absolutely, don’t even try to resolve it, just turf those families, some with small children out on the street. Let them become Focus Ireland’s problem. Then, when The Journal publish an article on the increase in Ireland’s homeless, you can leave just as smug a comment about how they mildly inconvenience you as you step over them on your way to work.
Maria, they have already tried to resolve it.
What to you think happens. Banks are commercial enterprises with the sole purpose if making a return on the investment for their share holders they are not charities and don’t shave letterhead with de department of social protection
Lose the house. Should have happened wholesale in 2008/2009 and we would have a functioning housing market by now and not the manipulated bubble madness and homeless crisis that we currently have
Brian, your grasp of economics is amazing. It’s good to see that you’ve sided with the IMF by blaming all the ‘stupid’ citizens for bringing the international markets to their knees. I mean, what were we all thinking?
Fin, if people knew the risk that they were taking when getting a mortgage. People paid half a million euro for a three bed house. That has nothing what so ever to do with international markets. People like myself saw that it was ridiculous and waited for the bubble to burst before buying.
Ulster bank make sure you get it In a big bag of cash don’t use your own payment system because it won’t be there on time
Nice to know that now we have sold our souls to the German bondholders, it has opened up a nice opportunity for vulture overseas investors to capitalize on our misery.
That is exactly what the irish did abroad during the boom. This will hopefully add more properties to the market
I’ll take them off your hands boss.
When you take out a loan the loan is between you and the bank so if they sell the loan it must be a breach of contract.?
Unless said contact contains a clause allowing said loan to be sold. Which, they all do.
You’ve been listening to too many freemen, don’t do it, they’re wrong and stupid.
If you are fully paid up and not in arrears, you have nothing to worry about but if you can’t afford your own home, you’ll have to do what everybody else who can’t afford to buy has to do…rent.
have your say