Agents head for the Marble CityAfter three years on the skite around the Continent the auctioneers will be back in the real world this week for their annual conference in Kilkenny.
After Nice, Lisbon and Barcelona, the marble city might be a bit of a come down, though members will be well insulated, staying at the luxurious Lyrath Manor estate just outside the city. The IAVI is expecting a record turnout of 330 delegates and their partners for the three-day event. It'll be a different event too in that for the first time in many years the market is in decline rather than booming. Everyone will have their own interpretation as to what's going on, and plenty of anecdotes about deals falling out of bed, greedy vendors and empty auction rooms. Disaster!
Return of the investor
Despite the reluctance of buyers to commit to buying houses, the Irish Home Builders Association is brave enough to cry wolf. It's saying that the halving of planning permissions in Dublin will inevitably lead to a housing shortage over the next two to three years. Will anyone believe them when builders are planning to quietly close down sites where new completions are just not selling, or at least not at the rapid rate that they have become used to in recent years. It will be a while before the market is concerned about housing shortages given that there is a rake of sites in the suburbs that won't be touched for years.
Housing shortage
It not all doom and gloom out there and there is some comfort to be had from yesterday's quarterly analysis from the Bank of Ireland which is now predicting house price inflation of around 3 per cent this year. Rents have been rising at around 10 per cent, and this is giving hope of a pick-up in sales of well located developments. The stamp duty issue is still hanging over the second-hand market, though the real issues are the higher interest rates and the cost of living, not to mention the continual harping on about factory closures and fears about the economy. Agents will be very keen to see investors re-entering the market, particularly where there's a bit of value on offer. Last weekend, for instance, Hooke & MacDonald reported almost 70 sales of apartments at Cornmill, off Clonliffe Road in Dublin 3, while newcomers to the new homes market, HT Meagher O'Reilly, clocked up a reported 65 sales at the Pierse Homes development in Clongriffen, Dublin 13. At the other end of the market, McInerney and sales agent Savills HOK were pleasantly surprised to sell no less than 10 large detached house at Druids Glen in Co Wicklow, all of them priced around €2 million. Who said the market is dead?
Buying the opposition
The IRFU is not the only operator in town buying up houses beside controversial development sites. In Stillorgan, no less than nine houses in a former county council estate have been purchased by developers Colum and Ciarán Butler, according to the local residents' association.
St Laurence's Park, which has around 80 houses, is tucked away between the N11 and the prime 2.5-acre Leisureplex site, where in 2005 the Butlers tried to get planning permission for a large-mixed use development incorporating a 15-storey tower, 314 apartments, a library, commercial and retail space, and a new Leisureplex.
An Bord Pleanála scuppered their plans however, following a raft of objections, including submission from the St Laurence's Residents Association. The brothers then sold on the site to Treasury Holdings for around €65 million.
Now, it seems that the pair, who operate the TGI Friday's franchise and the Leisureplex chain, are keen to get a foothold back into the area.
The bowling brothers have been purchasing houses in the estate over the last couple of years. Things have heated up and four private sales have been made in the last few months and a number of negotiations are ongoing at the moment, according to the residents' association.
Bernie McCann, spokesperson for the St Laurence's Park Residents Association, says the moves are causing "unease" in the estate. "People are very worried. In a sense we are talking about a residential community being taken over by one developer. It is eroding the community."
The residents want to know what long-term plans the developers have, she says.
