The colonisation of London by Irish property investors continues apace. The latest apartment block - still only a hole in the ground and a computer-generated graphic - gathered reservations for properties worth up to £9 million in Dublin last weekend. Some 31 out of 81 one and two-bedroom apartments in London House were sold over three days by Jackson-Stops at an exhibition in Jurys Hotel. In all, more than 100 potential investors, mostly professional people and up to half from outside of Dublin, visited the exhibition. The block, which is to be built on the edge of the City and across the road from the Barbican Centre, was unusual in the fact that it has been offered to Irish buyers before it goes on the market in London next month. The homes are not due to be completed until the summer of 2000. Investors in Hong Kong got the first bite of the cherry, however: some 13 of the apartments were sold there last November.

The success of the sales in Dublin for the developers St George justifies the argument that Jackson-Stops have been putting to London developers. "We have been arguing with them for quite a while to have their first launch in Dublin," according to Mary Jo Hanlon of the estate agents. "And this has worked out very well for them."