RTE 9 O’Clock News with Martina Fitzgerald, 22nd April 2010

Martina Fitzgerald of RTE 9 O’Clock news did a piece on the Government backed lender Home Choice Loan, critiquing the fact that they have only advanced 5 mortgages since their inception in autumn of 2008. Home Choice Loan was set up to alleviate the absence of lending in the Irish mortgage market but it has failed to do this which is evident in the numbers.

We believe that Home Choice Loan does have a very relevant and meaningful role in the mortgage market, but not in the guise of being another lender competing with the rest of the high street, rather in facilitating people in negative equity or arrears.

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Negative Equity Financing

I was on the panel on Frontline recently and during it I mentioned a thing called ‘Negative Equity Financing’, we were asked by a few journalists and some clients about it, so hopefully this post will help to clear up what it is, and how it may work.

For a start, I’m anti-bailouts, in general and in particular, so debt forgiveness is not really something you’ll  see supported here, but we are big believers in facilitation, and any means that can help to oil the cogs is likely better than one that tries to create a new machine – albeit in time that is what we need; changes to our property and debt laws. However, in the here and now facilitation is quicker and easier to implement and has a better chance of reaching those it is intended for.

Negative Equity Financing is the idea we have put forward, but it isn’t just a case of doing a short sale because that doesn’t work in Ireland.

A short …

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