A HOUSE valued at €7 million in 2007 has just been sold for €2.4 million, ending one of the longest-running property sagas of the decade in Dublin.
Number 19 Herbert Park in Ballsbridge, Dublin 4, a detached redbrick built in 1910, failed to sell at auction in 2002, when its guide price was €3.2 million. It remained quietly for sale through the boom and in 2007, the price had risen to over €7 million.
It has only just sold, for a figure believed to be around €2.4 million – 66 per cent less than its peak price.
Estate agent Wade Wise has handled the property since it came on the market in 2002. Originally it was for sale with the HOK agency, which later became Savills, but it stayed with Wise, who this year set up his own agency, Beirne Wise.
In 2009, the price fell first to €3.5 million, then to €2.85 million. Owner Asha Chowdra contacted Wise earlier this year and he put the house on the market in June for €2.5 million. It was sale agreed after a price drop by the end of July and Wise has just announced that the sale has been completed.
The 279sq m (3,000sq ft) six-bedroom redbrick came with a 75ft garden dominated by a studio used by Chowdra. The Chowdra family once owned the Shree shops in Dublin
Wise says that the price achieved is in line with the market, where prices have fallen back to 2000/2001 levels.
While house sales have fallen dramatically in the past few years, agents are reporting a reasonable number of sales in 2010. Houses at the top end of the market, where prices generally have fallen by 50 to 60 per cent since the 2006 peak, are beginning sell again.
And some high profile houses that came on the market only this year sold fairly quickly.
Heather Cottage, a 270sq m (2,906sq ft) modern five-bedroom detached house on Upper Cliff Road, Howth, Co Dublin, built and owned by developer Treasury Holdings and designed by the late Andrzej Wejchert, came on the market in April for €2.5 million.
John O’Sullivan of Lisney says the house was sold in the summer for close to that price.
Meanwhile, 19 Waltham Terrace, a four-bedroom Victorian house in Blackrock, Co Dublin, sold through Savills in November for somewhere between 10 per cent and 15 per cent below the €1.6m asking price.
NEXT WEEK: Houses that sold in 2010
