Dublin 13: from €360,000 & €655,000: Twenty large five-bedroom houses go on sale today in a new development aimed firmly at the trade-up market in Balgriffin, off the Malahide Road, in Dublin 13. Orna Mulcahy, Property Editor, reports.
Built by Frank Fahy's Shannon Homes, Castlemoyne is an impressive scheme of semi-detached homes with prices starting from €655,000.
With most Dublin developers opting for high density apartments and duplexes, very few traditional family houses are being built, so already there has been big interest in the 81 houses at Castlemoyne, many of which have already sold from plans.
The buyers include families from Portmarnock, Malahide and Baldoyle seeking a trade-up home at a reasonable price, according to Ronan O'Driscoll of selling agent HOK: "There is a huge untapped market in the Dublin area for family homes. As stamp duty levels in Ireland are the second highest in Europe (Greece has 10 per cent) people hate to part with such significant amounts of dead money on stamp duty. Here, there is no stamp duty."
The traditional-style redbricks have just under 186sq m (2,000sq ft) of living space with a big bright kitchen cum livingroom spanning the back of the house, and a main bedroom suite taking up the entire attic floor.
Alongside Castlemoyne, Shannon is also building a scheme of contemporary three-bedroom houses, called St Samson's. Around 60 of these are going on the market today, with prices starting at €360,000. The houses are being built around two large courtyard gardens with each house having private access to the secure garden area.
Balgriffin in situated between the Malahide Road at the new Hilton Airport Hotel and Portmarnock. It's an area that is going to see huge growth over the next five years with several large scale residential and recreational developments coming on stream.
Castlemoyne is being designed as a neighbourhood with houses laid out in a series of traditional cul-de-sacs with good communal grounds. They're good-looking houses with landscaped front gardens, granite window sills and trim, and a gated passageway to the back garden. Inside, there's a large livingroom to the front leading through double doors to a diningroom and then on to the kitchen cum livingroom at the back. The ceilings are higher than average and there are some nice standard features, such as the sandstone fireplace in the livingroom. The first floor has four bedrooms - two doubles, two singles, sharing one en suite and a family bathroom. The top floor has the main bedroom with own bathroom and walk-in wardrobe.
Shannon Homes has built up a strong reputation for quality houses and good landscaping. Most recently, it completed the Laraghcon development in Lucan.
