Carrickmines site down 85% from peak

A developer has paid €3m for a site in south county Dublin with permission for 43 new homes. At the height of the boom, land in the area was making €4m-€4.5m per acre, writes JACK FAGAN

A NEW benchmark for housing development land in south Dublin has been set with the sale of a high profile site in Carrickmines. Land values in the area may have fallen by up to 85 per cent since the peak of the property market in 2006.

The 1.8 hectares (4.46 acres) at Glenamuck Road in Carrickmines, which has full planning permission for a new homes development, has just been sold to a local developer for €3 million.

The price works out at €672,645 per acre – a long way from the average price of €4 million to €4.5 million an acre achieved during the boom years.

The site was originally sold to a developer in 2004-2005 by financial journalist and Dáil candidate Shane Ross and his neighbour Eamon Walsh, formerly of Hibernian Insurance.

Mark Reynolds of Savills, who handled the most recent sale, said various Irish lending institutions as well as Nama have been keeping a close eye on the Carrickmines sale in view of the large tracts of development land bought in the same general area by builders at the peak of the market.

A variety of banks are reported to have advanced total loans of up to €1 billion to developers during the boom to acquire much of the 400 acres of newly-zoned land between Carrickmines and Kilternan.

Some of the more expensive sites included suburban houses on extensive grounds off the Glenamuck Road which runs through much of the area. The rezoning of the land by Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council in 2004 proved a bonanza for a large number of householders who were happy to offload their properties at the top end of the market.

The biggest landowners in the area include Park Developments, Newlyn, Durkan Ireland and O’Mahony Finnerty. The Hanly Group’s development company, Laragan Homes, paid over €35 million for a site of 9.6 acres at Glenamuck Road in 2005. The company has since gone into liquidation. So too has Pierse Construction, which also developed new homes in Carrickmines.

The Carrickmines site just sold by Savills is located at the most northerly end of Glenamuck Road, east of the Carrickmines interchange of the South Eastern Motorway. It is within easy walking distance of the shopping and office development, The Park in Carrickmines, and is close to the recently-opened Luas stop on Ballyogan Road.

The site has planning permission for a low-density housing scheme comprising 43 four and five-bedroom semi-detached family homes ranging in size from 165 to 218sq m, (1,776 to 2,347sq ft).

The current planning permission was obtained by Astondale, the development wing of South Dublin Construction.

The site was assembled through the purchase of the two large detached houses belonging to Ross and Walsh. The price paid for the the full 4.46 acres was never disclosed. Ross went on to buy a large house in Enniskerry, Co Wicklow, for €6.2 million in 2005.

Reynolds said the scheme of traditional family houses now planned for the site was ideal for the market.

Another advantage was that the scheme would involve lower development levies as it pre-dated the recent increase in charges introduced by Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council.