Prices for big D4 houses tumbled when some vendors had to sell, writes FRANCES O'ROURKE
HOME SALES generally may have fallen like a stone, but a number of D4 and D6 homes came on the market in 2011 – at dramatically reduced prices – and a number of sales were wrapped up by the end of the year. Many were properties owned by developers and investors and in quite a few cases Nama got the money.
The collapse of financier Derek Quinlan’s empire led to the sale of properties on Shrewsbury Road and Ailesbury Road: Quinlan had invested heavily in Ballsbridge properties. Number 6 Shrewsbury Road, his family home, was sold early in the year by Sherry FitzGerald for an estimated €7 million. Lisney got around €2.7 million for his property at 43 Ailesbury Road, and €2.6 million for 1 Elgin Road.
However, by year’s end, Quinlan’s properties at 1 and 3 Shrewsbury Road were still for sale through Sherry FitzGerald asking €7.5 million.
Elsewhere on Shrewsbury Road, Colliers International has sold Woodside, the offices of the Pharmaceutical Society of Ireland, for around the €8 million it was seeking, it is understood, but Thorndene, businessman Niall O’Farrell’s house, is still for sale by Colliers, also looking for €8 million.
The headline act on Shrewsbury Road, Walford, formerly Ireland’s most expensive house, may or may not have sold following the October deadline for tenders, but joint agents Lisney and Savills don’t – yet – know, because lawyers for the vendor handled the tenders in great secrecy.
The beneficial owner of Walford is Gayle Killilea, wife of developer Sean Dunne: bought in 2005 for a record €58 million, it went back on the market this September for €15 million.
Sherry FitzGerald wrapped up the sale of the home of major property developer, Bernard McNamara, by November: J P McManus is reported to have bought 22 Ailesbury Road for about €10 million.
Two of McNamara’s mews houses at 14A and 16A Ailesbury Road, which need extensive refurbishment, being sold through Sherry FitzGerald, were under negotiations at year’s end – both could make over the asking price of €4.25 million.
And number 14 Ailesbury Road, a six-bed semi owned by solicitor and developer Noel Smyth, sold by Nama through Sherry FitzGerald made close to €4 million. Nearby, Colliers still has 4, 6 and 8 Elgin Road (owned by James Reynolds, brother of former taoiseach Albert Reynolds) for sale for €6 million.
Meanwhile, DNG had strong sales both in D4 and D6: it sold 17 Orwell Park, a Rathgar redbrick, for just under the asking price of €1.8 million and a Dartry Edwardian, 4 Sunbury Gardens, for just under the €1.35 million asking price.
Hazelmere, a newly-built house on Westminster Road, Foxrock, owned by Nama developer David Arnold, went for sale in October and is sale agreed, says Lisney’s David Bewley.
Number 21 Herbert Avenue in Sandymount sold over its AMV at auction for €500,000 through Colliers.
Many buyers are cash buyers – at least half, reckons Lisney’s Bewley. Several agents report a pick-up in sales towards the end of 2011: Keith Lowe, CEO of DNG, says that his agency recorded and awful lot of sales this year and that since the Budget, there has been an upswing in demand and bidding.
Peter Kenny of Colliers says that its sales more than doubled in the last four months of the year, compared to 2010. “It may be that with a wobbly euro, some of them have decided that their money is better in bricks and mortar than in the bank, or just that they want a family home before their family has grown up.”
Sherry FitzGerald managing director Michael Grehan says that it sold more family homes than investor-owned properties, with D4 and D6 homes outstripping other areas.
David Bewley says that many vendors are people in financial difficulty who have to sell and won’t be in the market for another big house. He wonders how many cash buyers are left and feels that every sale may mean that there’s one less buyer out there.
