Daft Property - Irish Property News

The new property reality... Like many things these days, the chances of selling a property seems to boil down to one factor: putting a realistic price tag on it and then being willing to take less than that. For estate agents around the country the last six months have been their worst nightmare. The younger generation of property professionals has never encountered the frustrations of the kind of market in which they are now operating. In the last six months there has been a growing body of buyers who are ready with mortgage approval or cash in the bank. These potential buyers have been tentatively viewing properties, and some even made offers. Then the daily diet of bad news increased and they evaporated back to the arms of the rental market - or their parents spare rooms - to sit it out. So what properties have sold in the last six months, the toughest months in a generation? The answer seems to be those that are 30 to 40 per cent cheaper than houses were on the same streets and ro...

Trophy seaside home tells story of the boom... IF A SINGLE house could tell the story of the property boom then it might be Sorrento Villa on Vico Road in Dalkey, Co Dublin. The Victorian detached house, facing the sea, slumbered up on the hill for decades, its interior divided into two spacious units that would have been described as flats rather than apartments. The house dates from the 1860s when it was built by a provost of Trinity College as a summer villa: and he chose one of the finest sites on the hill with a sunny east-to-south exposure. Two years ago when property prices reached fever pitch, it came on the market with an Advised Minimum Value (AMV) of €4.5 million. However, after intense bidding at auction it sold for €5.6 million. Stamp duty at 9 per cent added an additional €500,000. The new owners went on to spend many thousands more on redecorating the rooms and making changes to the layout, converting it to a five-bedroom house. They also drew up plans to install an expe...