Drastic price cuts are being talked of all over town, as vendors try to offload property that's been on the market for months - in some cases since last year.

None more drastic than in Co Westmeath where the asking price of Middleton House, Castletown Geoghegan has been slashed by £500,000 (€634,900). Owners Jeremy and Sharon Kenny, who had been running the Georgian pile as a wedding venue, put it on the market last year and thought they had found a buyer in a UK investor who planned to turn the mansion into a Greco-Roman style health spa. Now that deal has fallen through - hence the drop in price to £1.3 million (€1.65m). The 28-bedroom house was originally the seat of the Rochfort Boyd family but it had fallen into disrepair by the 1980s when professional gambler Barney Curley raffled the house at £20 (€25.39) per ticket, netting close to £2 million (€2.54m). While the Kennys renovated most of the house, and created a 250-seater function room in the basement, a wing of the house still has to be restored. Joint selling agents are Gunne Residential and Galway-based agent Helen Cassidy.