Hoping for better timing: imposing Ranelagh red brick back on the market

Deciding when to sell a house is usually down to circumstances; after that, the timing is as much about luck as anything else. In 2007 the owners of number 3 Northbrook Road – a house that had been in the family for decades – put the impressive, detached redbrick in Ranelagh on the market. They had built a stunning-looking mews house in the garden, but, when it came to to selling the main house, their timing proved unlucky.

In 2006, its ¤5 million price tag would have been just one of many; by 2007 the market had collapsed and the house didn’t sell. It has been a rental since then and is now back on the market, this time for ¤1.85 million. Sherry FitzGerald are the agents.

It’s an imposing, detached period house, two storey over garden level comprising 349sq m (3,760sq ft).There are a number of rarely found period features including an impressive and highly decorative curved staircase in its roomy and grand hallway and a large coloured glass window on the landing.

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To suit the rental market, it has wall-to-wall oatmeal carpets and magnolia painted walls but the bland look is something new owners can instantly and easily change.

They may also change the internal layout, as generally families prefer the kitchen down at garden level. Here the main kitchen is at hall level at the back of the house. Also at this level are two very fine reception rooms; they don’t interconnect but they do have elaborative plasterwork and the front bay window makes the room feel even larger and grander.

Also at this level is a sun room – the Victorians were keen on sun rooms – and this is lovely, decorative as well as practical, with encaustic tiles on the floor, and perched on stilts high over the south-facing garden with a wrought-iron staircase providing access up and down.

Upstairs there are just three bedrooms – all very large, obviously – and two modern, smart looking bathrooms. Down at garden level, where the ceiling height is unusually good, there is a small kitchen, a bathroom and three principal rooms – two or even three could be bedrooms. Moving the kitchen downstairs into either the front or the back room would be an option. A covered side passage gives access from the garden level out to the front.

The back garden is still a good size – the mews, now partially shielded by a fringe of bamboo – didn’t eat up too much space and there is off-street parking to the front for one or two cars.