Irish holiday homebuyers have pushed up prices in Connemara in the last decade - and foreign owners are cashing in on the boom FRANCES O'ROURKEreports
WHEN NEW YORK lawyer Michael McGovern and his wife Barbara bought a traditional thatched Irish cottage on half an acre near Carraroe in the Connemara Gaeltacht in 2003, they could hardly have imagined it would help fund their move to suburban Connecticut five years later.
The strong Euro - worth 33 per cent more against the dollar than in 2003 - makes the sale a valuable proposition. That's one of the reasons the McGoverns (who own it with Michael's brother Jim and his wife Susan) are selling up. The other reason is that with two small children, Connemara is just too far away.
The McGoverns, who both have strong Irish roots, wanted a holiday home that was a complete contrast to their life on Manhattan's Upper East Side when they came looking for a place in Connemara five years ago. The cottage with the red trim "just steps from several private, unspoiled beaches, on which the only other footprints (if any) belong to wandering cattle", according to Michael, was perfect. He's lyrical as he describes the postcard cottage: the red door opens into the whitewashed interior of the large main room with a traditional fireplace. On the left is a rustic kitchen with a Belfast sink, new fridge and microwave, a full bathroom, and overhead, a loft bedroom.
The main bedroom - "where you can lie in bed and see the sea" - is behind the fireplace, and steep steps lead up to another loft bedroom. They did little to the cottage apart from replacing the thatched roof with a new one at the cost of about €25,000 last year.
The cottage is not far from the road and with neighbours dotted around, is not isolated - but "when you sit on a stone bench outside all you can see is the sea".
McGovern sounds like he's beginning to regret putting it up for sale. He's hoping to get €290,000 - just more than twice the €127,000 he paid for it. It is for sale through Galway Bay Properties in Spiddal, Co Galway.
Over the past decade, Connemara enjoyed a mini-property boom of its own, with well-heeled Irish buyers driving up prices and taking over as the dominant force in a market once more popular with Europeans and Americans.
Owning a little grey home - or a whitewashed cottage - in the West has been the dream of many Irish city people, from the Celtic Revival onwards, and the dream is very much still alive, say local agents, despite our foreign property buying spree in sunnier holiday spots abroad. Meanwhile, many foreign owners are selling up, cashing in on a boom they never expected.
Prices rose from around €30,000 15 to 20 years ago, to a minimum of around €200,000 to €250,000 - more or less the entry level cost of a Connemara cottage right now. (You could pay €250,000 just for ruins on a site with a view in a good location, if it has enough of a roof to make non-locals eligible for planning permission.) And values can rise as high as €1.5 million for properties in good locations with views and near water. Roundstone and Ballyconneely - sometimes dubbed Connemara 4 for the area's popularity with southside Dubliners - are still very much the most popular locations.
Agent Tony Kavanagh of Sherry FitzGerald Kavanagh, which has offices in Clifden and Galway city, sold a cottage on three-quarters of an acre at Ervallagh, Roundstone for €1.26 million at auction in August 2007. In January, Rod Spencer of Spencer Auctioneers in Oughterard closed the sale of a traditional cottage with sea views at Errisbeg, Roundstone, for €850,000.
Agent Helen Cassidy, based in Clonbur, near Cong, Co Galway, reckons it will cost €1 million for a property on what she calls "the Gold Coast" - that's the Carrick shoreline on Lough Corrib, between Cong and Cornamona, with beautiful views and great fishing. Spencers sold one at Glann, on the Corrib near Oughterard, for €1.4 million last year.
But will the Connemara cottage market take a hit now that the Irish property boom is well and truly over? It's still "a bit early in the season to know what will happen this year", says Kavanagh.
"The real selling season is from mid-May to mid-September." He reckons that properties in more rural locations, not near water or a village or without good views "will struggle to sell". Rod Spencer is confident there won't be a downturn in the market in 2008 - he reports increased inquiries in the weeks coming up to Easter, and concluded the sale of a cottage in Rosmuc over the Easter weekend for €225,000.
Both Kavanagh and Cassidy say that most of their cottage sales in the past couple of years have been for foreigners - Europeans, some Americans - rather than Irish owners. Cassidy believes that Europeans in particular have "a Connemara period, and get it out of their system". But the rapid growth in values in the past decade clearly prompted many foreign owners to sell. "Sometimes it's bought back by a neighbour whose grandfather sold it originally," says Cassidy.
Now that they have more choices, why do urban Irish buyers still want to buy their holiday home in a location with weather as unpredictable as our west coast? There's the psychological draw of course, the dream of spending at least some time in "real Ireland", a place somehow more authentic, and true to our roots than our now sprawling cities.
It's also more accessible, especially now that motorways are making the drive to the west much quicker from Dublin. "And people build up friendships with other holiday homeowners over, say, 20 years," says Helen Cassidy.
This might be a good year to think of buying, since it seems probable that at the very least, price rises will slow down. But the hierarchy of prices seems likely to stay the same, with fashion dictating which areas are most expensive. There are a few new factors influencing popularity - e.g., drink drive laws have increased interest in properties close to villages. Otherwise the eternal verities - location, views - dictate price.
Roundstone and Ballyconneely are still the most fashionable and expensive places to buy a Connemara cottage. (Roundstone has a village and a beautiful beach, Ballyconneely a golf course and beach.) Prices up to now have averagely ranged from around €400,000 to €700,000 for a place on half an acre.
Cottages in Cleggan, Renvyle, Tully and Moyard cost a little less, ranging averagely from €300,000 to €500,000.
South Connemara - Gaeltacht spots like Carraroe, Casla and Costello - are popular but less fashionable and accessible, says Oughterard agent Luke Spencer: prices there are more typically €200,000 to €450,000.
No one knows yet where prices will head this season but agents expect Irish people to go on buying. "Often it's people who've spent childhood summers there," says Kavanagh. "Irish people have a loyalty to Connemara."
Very strict planning decisions mean that there has been a limited amount of new development in the past 20 years, mostly confined to towns and villages like Clifden and Roundstone - and limited supply may keep prices strong. They're not making traditional Connemara cottages any more.
