Rush of buyers forces builder to free-up homes

The demand for apartments in Dublin shows no signs of abating. Last weekend, the Galway-based developers, O'Malley Construction, scored another major success when it sold no less than 84 apartments in the grounds of the St Helen's Radisson Hotel, at Stillorgan Road, Booterstown, Co Dublin. More than 3,000 people visited the development over the weekend and at one stage gardai helped to ease the congestion when huge tailbacks formed on Stillorgan Road.

The company originally had planned to release 24 apartments in Merrion Woods but when these were sold, and a large number of people queued outside the apartment block, it decided to release another 24 units. These were also booked within hours. At that stage, O'Malleys decided to release two more blocks on another part of the site known as Seamount and again most of these units were booked. By the time the show apartments closed on Sunday evening, eight penthouses remained for sale.

The runaway success of the development is due mainly to the superb location beside the new five-star hotel and the extremely stylish fit-out by O'Malleys. Most of the units were bought by owner-occupiers. One-bedroom apartments with 490 sq ft ranged in price from £160,000, while two-bed units with 750 to 800 sq ft made from £195,000 to £250,000. The prices include car-parking.

The rush to buy apartments at St Helen's was only part of the weekend sales achieved by agents Hamilton Osborne King. The firm's new homes division sold 175 apartments and houses between Thursday and Sunday, making it one of the busiest weekends of the year. Last Thursday HOK's Ronan O'Driscoll chalked up £13 million in sales within six hours when he took bookings for all 57 apartments nearing completion on the site of Tara Street Fire Station. Virtually all the units in Trinity Plaza were bought by investors, who plan to avail of the tax shelter offered by the Section 23 tax designation. One-bed apartments made from £155,00 to £175,000, while two-bedroom units fetched from £200,000 to £250,000. Surprisingly, the 60 spaces in the basement car-park were also booked at a very pricey £30,000 each - easily the highest price yet achieved for car spaces in the city.

HOK's third launch last weekend of three-bedroom semis at Park View, Swords, produced sales of 35 units. Buyers were offered a voucher for carpets worth £1,000. Five of the 1,000 sq ft houses remain on the market at £124,950.