AroundtheBlock Dublin's estate agents may choke on their cornflakes this morning to read that Mark FitzGerald's Sherry FitzGerald Group has notched up another first by taking control of one of London's blue chip residential estate agencies.
Marsh & Parsons didn't come cheap at €8 million, but a 150-year lineage and with offices in London hot spots, the company is a good match for FitzGerald's Dublin operation.
Many of Sherry Fitz's clients have bulging overseas property portfolios, and now they are likely to put London at the top of their list. Fitzer laid the ground work carefully for his London acquisition, by first poaching Peter Rollings from Foxton's, London's biggest residential agency.
The 42-year-old will be taking a slice of the equity along with two others, including a former Sherry Fitz negotiator Liza Jane Kelly, who has been in London for several years working with Hamptons. According to Rollings, the London market has been flat since 2001 but, with the economy doing well, it's likely to lift over the next year or two. Sherry Fitz is well placed to capitalise on the lift, by possibly making one of the shrewdest moves in the history of the company.
Fancy a franchise?
Is there room for yet another franchise group of estate agencies in Ireland? The big American group Coldwell Banker seems to think so. It sent a heavyweight delegation to Dublin this week to announce its arrival in the Irish market, where it plans to franchise 50 residential offices in the next three years.
Meetings were set up with the likes of HOK, Gunne and Ganly Walters to test the water but, as these agencies have link-ups with international organisations, it's unlikely that they are ready to join up. However, with their eye firmly on the upper end of the market, it predicts that it will become "the dominant force" in Ireland's real estate market.
The company has 3,700 residential and commercial offices in 33 countries and had a turnover last year of $325 billion in sales in north America alone. Adding considerable weight to their presence, they've taken on two Irish partners, cement and insurance magnate Sean Quinn and Dublin solicitor Nicholas Hughes to roll out the Irish operation.
Take off in Greystones
Greystones is gearing up for some pretty serious development. The decision by Wicklow County Council to bring in Park Developments and Sisk as preferred developers for the new marina is a good move given their record of delivering.
The pair have completed noteworthy schemes in Dublin in recent years, like Hanover Quay, one of the best docklands schemes to date. With the Dart in place, Greystones is going to take off and the new developers will deliver a state-of-the-art marina with lots of retail attractions.
New man at DDDA
With the Dublin docklands rejuvenation scheme well under way, the newly appointed chief executive of the Dublin Docklands Development Authority, Paul Maloney, is in for a busy few years. Interestingly, Maloney, who replaces Peter Coyne, has been looking after developments in the city centre for Dublin City Council and is well equipped to oversee the massive changes due to take place down by the water.
The former army captain who served in the Lebanon with the UN will need all his diplomatic skills to deal with the issue of tower blocks, not mention the cut-throat competition between the various developers pitching for action in the docklands.
