One swallow does not make a summer, but the sale yesterday of a Victorian house on Wellington Road, Ballsbridge, for €10.5 million will give a lift to the beleaguered property market.
The price set a new record for the Dublin 4 road and easily exceeded Lisney's advised minimum value of €6.75 million. The house, number 81, was being sold by the Roden family, well-known investors and developers in the property industry, who had lived there for decades.
The house was bought in trust and the agents declined to identify the new owner.
At least four bidders chased the two-storey above garden level house, which is in need of total refurbishment. Dating from the 1840s, it is one of only three double-fronted houses on the road, which runs between Clyde Road and Pembroke Road.
It is a large house by any standards, with a floor area of 431 sq m (4,693 sq ft), and it is distinguished by finely-proportioned rooms, high ceilings and ornate plasterwork.
The sale underlines the continuing demand for top-quality family homes even if they are in need of a lot of work.
Despite the marked slowdown in the second-hand homes market generally, expensive houses have been selling well. Former taoiseach Albert Reynolds recently secured about €14 million for the large redbrick house on Ailesbury Road which he bought in the mid-1990s for about £600,000.