Daft Property - Irish Property News

Just eight houses sold under the hammer in Dublin this year, as the number of houses offered at auction collapsed by 80 per cent. In total,19 properties were offered for sale in the capital’s auction room; in 2006, at the height of the boom, more than 1,000 properties were auctioned in the city. Estate agents Bennetts held most of this year’s auctions, putting five properties under the hammer. Lisney handled four auctions, as did Sherry FitzGerald, while Colliers Jackson-Stops auctioned three. Douglas Newman Good, Harper O’Grady and Property Team each held one auction. Simon Ensor, director of auctions at Sherry FitzGerald, described the number of auctions this year as unprecedented. ‘‘In the past, a quiet year for us would have been one where we [Sherry FitzGerald] held 25 auctions and where overall, there were around 100 across the entire market," he said. ‘‘I’ve been selling houses by auction since the mid-1980s, and I don’t ever remember a year where there were so few sales....

AS CHRISTMAS and 2009 loom some vendors are cutting prices to get buyers off the fence . Number 7 Claremont Road in Howth has a new asking price of €3.75m, down from €4.8m, a drop of €1.05m or 22 per cent. For sale through Savills, the four-bed Georgian-style home first came on the market in August. It ticks all the boxes for a trophy home with 418sq m (4,500sq ft) of space and three large reception rooms. A large basement could be used as a gym, music room or home cinema. Gunne Residential is asking €1.95m for an Edwardian semi - 4 Proby Square off Carysfort Avenue in Blackrock, Co Dublin - which is a 29 per cent drop from the original price of €2.75m. The house has been on the market a number of times in the past five years. In September 2003 it sold for €1.625m with 0.25 acres of rear and side garden with development potential. The following year the house sold with a substantially reduced garden for €1.5m. The six-bed, 300sq m (3,200sq ft) house is in a cul-de-sac. Gunne Residentia...