Will developers be tempted by two infill development sites being sold by the receiver?
TWO INFILL development sites going for sale in Killiney and Carrickmines will be one of the first tests of the strength of the market in south Dublin since land prices collapsed over two years ago. Both sites are being sold by Savills on behalf of the KPMG receiver Kieran Wallace.
While the majority of developers in the Dublin area have taken a serious hit from a fall of up to 60 per cent in land values, there are still a considerable number with cash available from new home sales before 2008 to take advantage of bargains coming on the market.
Mark Reynolds of Savills is quoting in excess of €2 million for a site of 1.12 hectares (2.73 acres) at Church Road, Killiney, with a good planning permission and more than €3 million for an equally attractive site of 1.8 hectares (4.46 acres) at Glenamuck Road, Carrickmines.
The Killiney valuation may come as a surprise to some developers given that in the last significant sale of a development site in the area businessman Sean Barron secured €20 million in the summer of 2006 for a house on just under three acres overlooking Killiney golf course at Ballinaclea Road.
The Killiney site now going for sale was assembled over the past seven years through the acquisition of three large detached houses facing on to Church Road and another one on Watson Road needed to give access to services. Though the site does not have any planning permission, a feasibility study by Anthony Reddy Architects suggests that it is best suited for 20 three- and four-bedroom detached and semi-detached houses. Reynolds also suggests that with a renewed demand for individual sites in the area some developers might prefer to reinstate a smaller number of large detached houses on individual plots.
The Carrickmines site is located at the most northerly end of Glenamuck Road, east of the Carrickmines interchange of the South Eastern Motorway. It is within easy walking distance of the successful retail and office scheme The Park in Carrickmines, and will greatly benefit from the forthcoming opening of the Luas stop on Ballyogan Road.
The site has planning permission for a low-density housing scheme comprising 43 four- and five-bedroom semi-detached family homes ranging in size from 165 to 218sq m (1776 to 2347sq ft).
Reynolds says that unlike with other lands in the area, the developer in this case will not have to deliver a high density scheme of apartments or duplexes as envisaged in the development plan but can build a scheme of traditional family houses – “exactly what the market wants”. Another advantage was that the scheme would involve lower development levies as it pre-dated the recent increase in charges introduced by Dún Laoghaire Rathdown County Council.
The site was assembled though the purchase of two large detached houses at the height of the property market in 2004 and 2005.
One of them had been owned by the financial journalist Shane Ross. The houses are now semi-derelict.
Savills say that the realistic valuation placed on a site with full planning permission next to the Luas green line should ensure competition from several developers.
