A six-bedroom house on Ireland's most expensive street is going under the hammer for less than €1.5m, a far cry from the €8m it might have attracted four years ago
It is part of Ireland’s second ever distressed property auction being put together by Allsop, the UK auctioneers and Space a Dublin estate agents who are largely acting on behalf of banks.
The auction, to be held in the Shelbourne Hotel in Dublin on July 7, includes 87 lots including 35 Ailesbury Road, a six-bedroom, three story house with a reserve of just €1.45m.
It is the most expensive property in the Allsop catalogue and is bound to set a new floor for house prices on the road where some of Ireland’s richest property developers once rubbed shoulders with ambassadors and one former Taoiseach, Albert Reynolds.
Although auctioneers Allsop say the property needs refurbishing, in 2007 a similar red-brick house a few doors down was bought by tax-inspector-turned property-developer Derek Quinlan for a staggering €8.5m.
Another Ballsbridge property in the catalogue, 61 Haddington Road – a two-story over basement house arranged into two self-contained flats just off Baggot St, is going for just €395,000. It would have commanded prices of several million in the boom.
In nearby Dublin 6 in upper Rathmines, a redbrick house on Villiers Road that would have valued in the region of €2m is on the market for a reserve of €495,000. The house is on a sought-after road, but arranged into five flats.
There was huge interest in the first auction run by Allsops in April with one house sold to a man in the crowd that had spilled out into the street.
Stephen McCarthy, managing director of Allsop’s Irish partner, Space, said the prices achieved were 47% below the peak with some including one of Raglan Lane in Ballsbridge going for €550,000, almost 10% lower than the upper reserve price published.
The cheapest property in the July 7 auction, with a reserve not exceeding €22,000, is a partially built two story house in Kells on 2.44 acres.
Other properties at the bottom of the ladder include a three bedroom flat (subject to tenancy of one room) in Waterford – on at €35,000 or a three-bedroom new build in Moyne, County Wexford which has a reserve not to exceed €42,500. Properties of this type would have sold for in the region of €200,000 in the peak of 2006 and 2007.
Also on sale is a four-bed home in the picturesque village of Goleen in West Cork with a reserve of just €100,000.
In nearby Schull, a coastal town in west Cork popular with the Dublin boating set is a package of two properties – a waterfront three-bed modern house with a separate one bedroom mews house. Reserve? €270,000.
