One new homes scheme displays the naked truth about the market, says Edel Morgan
I couldn't resist veering off the Malahide Road on Sunday for a snoop around the Belmayne new homes development. My interest was piqued on several fronts. For one, I've been hearing conflicting reports about the state of the new homes market and wanted to see how busy it was. I also wanted to see the interiors by Laurence Llewellyn-Bowen and gardens by Diarmuid Gavin and, after the developer won an Irish Times property award last week for its steamy, if beautifully shot, advertising campaign, I was curious to see if a neighbour of mine was exaggerating about the "alarming" poster at the entrance.
For the record my neighbour wasn't exaggerating about the poster. For anyone of a prudish disposition, or who gets distracted easily when driving, it might be wise to avert your eyes when passing the entrance where a couple in a compromising position test the strength of the kitchen work surfaces. The poster, along with several others that line the access road, come as a bit of a jolt to the system after turning off the fairly workaday, anodyne environment of the Malahide Road. History doesn't relate if they're the same posters that were removed from the main road earlier this year by order of the Advertising Standards Authority for Ireland.
What these posters are saying about the development isn't quite clear. Is it really a swinger's paradise masquerading as a new homes development? Is there a clause in the contract that says you must be a racy young thing who parades around in a swimsuit nibbling suggestively at various fruits? If so, shouldn't they have named the development Bacchanalia Lane or Bodacious Boulevard? And, more importantly, aren't they limiting their market a tad in the current sluggish climate?
Once you drive past Sodom and Gomorrah, you arrive at a fairly sensible looking new homes development. There were three show homes open on Sunday, each with a steady trickle of viewers. How many were genuine househunters and how many were, like me, there to gawp at the lavish interiors is hard to gauge. There seemed to be a few serious buyers, but it was a definite reversal of the boom days of frenzied buying. There was a sense of having all the time in the world. In the kitchen of one of the four-bed houses, a young man, wielding a measuring tape, was jotting down dimensions in a notebook. His other half was scrutinising the inside of cupboards and commenting on the finishes.
Upstairs, two late-20s women chatted about which showhome they liked best and joked that they were deducting two points from this one for the "boring kitchen".
Across the road in the three-bed there was some hard haggling going on in the kitchen with a young woman asking the estate agent if she could make an offer on a house or "do you have to pay the set price". The agent replied that prices are set but he could always go back to the builder with her offer. He said flooring was being thrown in as an extra for anyone who buys from the first phase, which is still not sold out. Recently an agent told me that it is a common tactic for buyers of both new and second-hand homes to now demand a substantial discount before signing the contract. This leaves the vendor or developer with a dilemma: whether to acquiesce or wait for another buyer.
Walking around the sumptuous homes, it can be easy to forget that, if you buy here, you won't get it with a plush interior but instead have an empty, neutral house with standard fittings. This came into focus looking out the window of one of the four-bed showhomes across the snazzy deck with planting and a garden room. Next door there was a line full of smalls and not a semi-clad couple, mid-tryst, in sight.
