A shortage in the supply of three- and four-bed family homes is pushing prices up in Meath. According to estate agents in the county, prices are up approximately 15 per cent on last year.
“The biggest issue for us right now is the shortage of stock, that problem hasn’t eased up at all in the past 12 months,” says Dermot Grimes of REA Grimes in Ashbourne.
“There are still a number of people in negative equity who can’t sell and move but that gap is definitely closing. Demand has always been there from first-time buyers but prior to this they just couldn’t get the finance. Now, mortgage approvals are slowly beginning to rise. Appraisals are up, transactions are up and we are seeing multiple parties bidding where, a few years ago, it would have been single bidders.”
Investors, too, are active here once again. “There is increased demand for apartments because rents are starting to come back up. People are looking at DIRT tax and the rate of return for bank deposits, and seeing better yields from property. But the underlying issue remains lack of supply,” he says.
Apartments in Navan represent good value, according to Eamon Gavigan of DNG Royal County. “We are seeing more of these kind of properties coming on to the market and they are selling, typically at less than €100,000.”
Two-bedroom apartments at Morton Hall, an art deco-style complex in a former cinema on Brews Hill, a central location, are selling for around €75,000, while a three-bedroom duplex costs around €95,000.
Three-bedroom semis in local estates such as Johnstown Woods are for sale for €145,000. “This time last year they were selling at €120,000. I’ve just sold a four- bed semi for €185,000, which went on the market this year at €160,000,” says Gavigan. “All of these are going to families but unfortunately very few family houses are coming to market.”
On the plus side, not all of the boomtime legacies are negative, Gavigan says. “The Celtic Tiger did at least leave a good infrastructural legacy for people living in Navan in terms of the good road network we have here now, with the rail line at Dunboyne just up the road.”
Strong demand from cash buyers and a large increase in loan-approved buyers is boosting demand, according to Rosemary McKeown of Raymond Potterton in Navan, which also serves surrounding towns such as Trim, Athboy and Kells.
“There is very strong first-time buyer demand as a result of the notable increase in lending. Due to the increase in capital values, people who have been previously stuck in their existing residence are now in a position where they can trade up. With the increased liquidity in the market it is now becoming possible to sell and buy simultaneously,” she says.
“Three-bedroom semi-detached houses in Navan that were trading at up to €130,000 are now comfortably exceeding €150,000. Four-bedroom detached houses which were trading at between €180,000 and €230,000 in Navan town are now trading in the region of €260,000 and €300,000.”
The top end of the market is slower to improve. “It’s getting better but there is still some remarkable value out there. Very good detached properties that would have been €1million houses in the past are being traded for around half that, and sales of those have picked up,” says McKeown.
There is increased activity in the commercial sector, too, in terms of transaction volumes if not values.
“In 2006 a banker from Morgan Stanley told me commercial prices here would fall to 10 per cent of what they then were, and I thought he was mad. In fact he was spot on,” says Michael Gavigan of REA T&J Gavigan in Navan town. He cites one commercial premises valued at €3.25million in the boom, which recently sold for €325,000.
“We just sold one for €240,000 that previously went for €2.4million. But at least commercial property is moving again,” he said.
The landscape has changed for agricultural property in Meath too, but here at least values have held up.
“There aren’t too many amateurs buying land these days,” says Stephen Barry, agricultural advisor with Raymond Potterton. “It’s almost all farmers buying now, and they are buying according to the quality of the land, with prices set accordingly.”
He recently handled the sale of 65 acres of farmland with a “habitable” house and a yard, on the border with Kinnegad, for €700,000, with the land being the key driver of that price, not the buildings.
Unlike for residential property, bank finance has been available throughout the downturn to farmers. “The deposits required were bigger but farmers were still considered to be more ‘bankable’,” he says.
There’s good reason for this, with an end to quotas scheduled for next year and government’s Food Harvest 2020 policy underpinning development in the sector. Farming is an increasingly attractive proposition.
“From next year on, if you milk 100 cows and want to milk 200, you can. If farmers are looking to increase their output land prices will go up, that’s inevitable and Meath has the best farm land in the country,” Barry says.
Market is now growing faster than in Dublin
A new study based on an analysis of the Property Price Register shows that the number and value of transactions in Meath rose substantially during 2013.
The study shows there were 1,014 sales in the Royal County last year, up 24 per cent on 818 a year earlier.
The research, carried out by property website MyHome.ie, also found that €173.6m was spent on property in Meath last year, 21 per cent more than in 2012.
This means that the market in Meath is growing at a faster pace than in Dublin, where the number of transactions rose by just 17 per cent last year.
The most popular area to buy property in the county by far was Navan, where there were 211 transactions last year. That means that roughly a fifth of sales in Meath were in that town. Sales in Navan rose by 17 per cent last year compared with 2012.
Other areas to record growth in the county included Duleek (140 per cent), Dunboyne (63 per cent), Stamullen (60 per cent), Trim (38 per cent), Dunshaughlin (33 per cent) and Ratoath (31 per cent).
The only notable areas to see sales fall last year were Ballivor (-64 per cent) and Clonee (-19 per cent).
Aside from Navan, the most popular areas to buy homes in Meath were Ashbourne (86), Trim (77), Kells (70), Dunboyne (65), Ratoath (46), Dunshaughlin (36), Drogheda (34) and Bettystown (32).
