The state can’t help you get a write-down (if you need a mortgage)

We had an interesting call today because a prospective client wanted to know about Home Choice Loan which is a state sponsored lender.

Her situation was interesting, she is in the process of negotiating a write-down from Tanager via the servicing agent Lapithus and wanted to know if there was any lender out there that might do the deal.

According to the Home Choice Loan website (and a fair critique is that they have done very little in the way of lending to anybody) they are there for first time buyers but ‘some exceptions may apply’. When queried we were told they wouldn’t consider a case for a refinance away from another lender.

What if that involves a good write-down? Currently no lender is willing to finance a deal like this so only people with access to cash can get the deal done, but in a world of low yields if the state was to consider loans like this and do them at their published rate of 3.25% then the nation could make a return on the money …

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RTE Drivetime: Discussing Home Choice Loan, 25th August 2016.

On the 25th of August we were featured on RTE’s ‘Drivetime’ with Mary Wilson to discuss Home Choice Loan which is a state run mortgage lender. The state lender has only done 21 loans to date or about 3 loans a year.

There are many reasons that HomeChoiceLoan should be popular but in practice they are not lending and there are many questions about the validity and use the scheme has.

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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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