THE MOST expensive country estate for sale in Ireland has had its asking price cut by an astonishing €8.5 million. Last year, the Castle Annaghs estate in Co Kilkenny was offered for sale by tender with a guide price of €16 million.
According to the agent, a sale had been agreed to an Irish dairy farmer but “the deal fell apart”. The property will now be offered for sale by public auction next month with a new advised minimum value (AMV) of just €7.5 million.
Prices for big country estates have generally fallen by between 30 to 50 per cent over the past year, according to estate agents dealing in the market. But they believe that there are still buyers looking for estates, both from here and the UK, many of them with cash in their pockets.
Anne Carton, an auctioneer with P N O’Gorman of New Ross, said the “very big price drop is a reflection of the current state of the property market and a sign of the owner’s serious intent to sell”.
The estate is owned by a wealthy German businessman whose father paid just £60,000 (punts) for the 929sq m (10,000sq ft) Georgian house on 550 acres in the 1960s.
The owner, who lives outside Hamburg, has other business interests and wishes to retire from farming. He has never lived on the estate, which is run by a farm manager, though he usually visits during the summer months.
The Castle Annaghs Estate is located close to New Ross, Co Wexford, but lies within the boundaries of Co Kilkenny and is accessed via the N25 main road to Waterford city.
Its 10-bedroom house was built for a late 18th century merchant prince and is surrounded by what the agent describes as top quality agricultural land with two miles of frontage on to the River Barrow. The house is believed to have been designed by the renowned Georgian architect, John Roberts, and has original plasterwork and large reception rooms featuring original, Adams-style Kilkenny marble fireplaces and floor-to-ceiling windows.
The estate is steeped in history. The grounds contain the ruins of a 16th century castle and a spot by the riverbank is reputedly the location where the second Earl of Pembroke, known as Strongbow, married Eva of Leinster in 1170 under an oak tree.
The sale price includes a three-bedroom gate lodge, a three-bedroom steward’s house and a four-bedroom grooms’ house as well as a herd of 400 cattle. The estate has a milk quota of 165,000 gallons which is likely to attract interest despite recent cuts in milk prices.
Ms Carton said the auction may attract interest from cash-rich farmers who have sold land for infrastructure projects and “who didn’t put the money into bank shares”.
A large number of farmers in the south of the country are understood to be holding considerable quantities of cash having sold land under compulsory purchase orders to facilitate the construction of new motorways linking Dublin to Waterford, Cork and Limerick.
Prices of country estates have fallen dramatically in the past year in line with the general fall in residential prices, with high-end country properties being hardest hit says agent Robert Hoban of Savills: Moyglare Manor in Maynooth, for example, which went on the market two years ago for about €10 million, sold at Christmas 2008 for a little over €3 million.
Average country house price drops are 30 to 35 per cent for “big houses with land”, says Robert Ganly of Knight Frank, who believes prices have held up better than for top end city houses.
But where an estate’s land is as, or more important than, the house, the drop is more of the order of 40 to 50 per cent, because of the drop in value of agricultural land. Land values nationally have fallen from €18,000/ €20,000 per acre a few years ago to €10,000/€12,000.
That notwithstanding, agents say there are buyers in the market for country estates, about half from the UK. Even with the collapse of sterling, Irish country estates are beginning to look like good value to UK buyers, some of them returning emigrants.
Ganly reckons there are 25 to 30 “hot buyers” in the market looking for properties between €2 million and €3 million. Knight Frank sold Rooske House in Co Offaly for €1.26 million at auction at the beginning of April, for example: the AMV was €1.25 million, and three people bid for the property.
Meanwhile Robert Hoban of Savills says most activity is in the €1 million to €2 million range, with properties selling when vendors are willing to drop the price sufficiently. Within the last month, for example, Savills sold Ballyknockan House, a Georgian property on nine acres near Rathdrum, Co Wicklow, for in the region of €900,000. It originally went on the market in summer 2008 for €1.5 million. Marcus Magnier of Colliers Jackson-Stops says that most vendors are now being realistic about pricing.
The auction of Castle Annaghs, Co Kilkenny, is scheduled for 3pm on May 29th at the Mount Brandon Hotel in New Ross, Co Wexford
