loan maturity update 29/6, page-6

A few factors that may drive banks towards deals like this: transaction costs, a lengthy foreclosure process, fear that hty may not achieve a price close to book value, fear that the foreclosed properties will be sitting on the book for a long time.
I have been investing in the US property market for the last few years, sometimes the banks accept much lower price compared to loan amount, which are called 'short sales', mainly because of the last factor (fear). For a listed bank, accepting a low price is just a matter of writing off part of the loan value and then move on. If there are lots of non performing assets on the book, that will become a bigger headache to the execs.