Idyllic country homes - for half the price

Country houses have plunged in value along with their Dublin counterparts. But sellers willing to look for realistic prices - about half what they used to be a year ago - might find buyers

THE COUNTRY house market is usually well underway by May, but it has been hard hit by the economic slowdown. Agents report that they are being kept busy showing properties – but only those that are realistically priced have a chance of selling say people like Philip Carton of PN O’Gorman in New Ross, Co Wexford.

There is huge resistance by some vendors to any price reductions – but cuts of the order of 50 per cent could result in sales.

Castle Annaghs, the Co Kilkenny estate on 100 acres which he will auction on May 29th, has had several viewings a week since its price was cut in half from €16 million to €7.5 million a month ago, he reports. That is an agricultural estate with a historic house, and most interest has come from the agricultural market.

Country houses often take longer than city houses to sell, but an artist’s house on nearly nine acres in Thomastown, Co Kilkenny, has been on the market for nearly two years. It has now been reduced in price from €2.3 million to €1,175,000, also a cut of nearly 50 per cent.

Kilfane Glebe is a former rectory owned by Hughie O’Donoghue which has been extensively refurbished. It is being sold by joint agents Savills and Boyd Real Estate Alliance.

The Georgian house, a former Church of Ireland rectory, was built in 1807. Accommodation in the 464sq m (4,994sq ft) main house includes four reception rooms and five bedrooms. A Clive Nunn kitchen has ceramic chequer-tiled floors, limestone worktops and a Belfast sink.

A courtyard links the house to a large art studio in restored and extended stables. There’s also a one-bedroom stone cottage in the courtyard with a kitchen and livingroom.

Meanwhile Boswell House, a horsey property on 36 acres in Ashford, Co Wicklow, which went on the market in June 2008, has been cut from €3.8 million down to €2.95 million.

The property, for sale through Knight Frank, consists of a heavily renovated Georgian farmhouse which comes with equestrian facilities, and three apartments and a separate studio apartment.

Some vendors putting their property up for sale for the first time are agreeing to pitch it at realistic prices. One such is Lake Lodge, a three-bedroom stone lodge on 10 acres in the grounds of Humewood Estate in Kiltegan, Co Wicklow.

Eighteen months ago, the property would probably have been priced at around €1.5 million, says selling agent Marcus Magnier of Collier Jackson-Stops. It has just come on the market and is for sale for €850,000.

“Properties that are realistically priced have a chance of selling,” says Magnier. The original estate lodge – the only one on the estate to come to the market recently, he says – has been extended and refurbished and has views of gardens and surrounding woodland. The lands are divided into four paddocks.

Humewood is near Baltinglass village in west Wicklow and 42 miles from Dublin.