I was recently back in Ireland talking to relatives and the topic of buying a house came up.
I was told by a relative of a friend of hers who had recently gone to the bank to get a 40K mortgage to help buy a house. The woman at the bank said that instead of money how about a house. So she went back to her husband, told him the story and he said ask for two houses! So she did and the bank said OK!
Now I know this sounds like rubbish and I cant verify it, but certainly the woman who told me is honest and she said the woman who bought the houses is honest.
So has anyone actually gone down to their local bank and asked if they have any houses for sale?
There’s something surreally Irish about what you suggest. The kind of Butcher Boy weirdness that makes it likely to be entirely likely.
This is just waiting to be WGU’d.
Back in 2008 it wasn’t uncommon for folks going in asking for car loans to be offered cars directly by the bank.
Most especially commercial vehicles such as Berlingos and Transit Connects.
Don’t fully get this: does she have to pay for these houses which the bank gave her? Approx how much is she paying as opposed to what normal current asking price?
I work in a bank branch and I’ve never known of anybody to ask for it and I certainly don’t know of any way such a request can be facilitated. This crops up often on the pin but I’ve never seen any evidence of it anecdotally in my several years in the bank. I’m not denying it happens but I certainly can’t confirm it does.
Got to agree.
Any branch manager I know has no power to make these offers and all decision-making has disappeared right up the line.
Unless the person was chatting with a regional manager I can’t see how anyone else would be capable of making it happen.
Went on a bit of a fishing expedition with a number of Irish banks about a year ago to see if this possibility existed. Did a bit of a dance-of-the-seven-veils to see if they had under-the-counter deals to do. None of them were interested. They were all more interested in trying to flog me fixed term accounts or investment bonds products. They were obviously on commission for these - and had no interest in anything else.
Having said all the above - I like the delicious imagery - so will see what I can knock together!
You, sir, have obviously not seen my Salomé!
Couldn’t see a regional manager having the time or the inclination to sit down and do a deal over a house. If I do ever hear of such a deal I’ll put it up here.
Philistine! 
I know someone who repossesses high end cars (little one man bands with tax efficient director loans for Maseratis and some less exotic commerical stuff) for banks. His interest is in protecting his own commission in so far as possible (he would previously have sold the loan on commission and it is conditional on non-default, with some protection for a repossession and subsequent sale that avoids the legal route).
These are all voluntary - he normally gets a call (I’m leaving the country - the car’s available if you want it type stuff) which he says is very different from the eighties where these things could get heated to the point of Garda involvement. Now he could meet the guy for a drink and be handed the keys with the car left in the car park. The bank’s interest is in preventing the customer from going back to original dealer who (often from the customer’s perspective this is where they actually obtained their finance) the bank feel will screw them.
This cars generally go to Merlin for auction. Some used to be sold prior to auction if the right offer came in. I put an offer in myself once but it was rejected, the car went to auction and fetched a good €2k over my €5k offer. Which definitely put it in private market price and practically in dealer territory. Last I heard, they weren’t accepting any pre-auction offers due to liability concerns but it might just be down to the high auction prices being achieved by people looking for a “bargain” but putting little value on the caveat emptor exemption you get from a dealer.
I’ve never actually heard of local sales people being in a position to make a sale offer. Most bank people I know talk about the “centralisation” of loan making decisions as being the ruination of the bank as “local knowledge” was routinely ignored (“the guy’s an alcoholic with a gambling problem and his farm was twice up for sale before he asked us to mortgage it” vs. “good loan to asset ratio”).
Oh, it’s late, but I lol’d!
I wonder about this story. We’ve heard a few times in the press about bank managers much too tight with developers - personally invested, pushing them on bank customers etc. Could this be another case of that?
In my experience it’s the opposite. Centralisation of loan decisions prevents the likes of “sure that’s Johnny down the road, I know him from the local GAA club, he’ll be grand for a €30k unsecured personal loan even though he’s had a few unpaids lately on his account”. I think that’s a situation that arose far more often than the one you mentioned.