It was almost like old times on the property market. Saturday's bleak drizzle notwithstanding, ads proclaiming price cuts of up to 25 per cent brought would-be buyers early and in their hundreds to queue hopefully for a bargain in The Meadows, Swords, Co Dublin.
Sales in the Albany Group development had been at a virtual standstill for more than 18 months. By 5pm on Saturday almost all of the 60 remaining homes had been sold.
David Daly's Albany Group is one of the largest house-builders in the Dublin area. The Meadows is the final phase of the group's 1,200-unit Holywell scheme which was launched in 2004.
Prices for the houses and apartments sold on Saturday started at €229,950 and rose to €340,950. This is a drop of between 14 and 25 per cent on prices of €269,950 to €454,950 when the same units first went on sale in April last year.
The queue of buyers started an hour before the units officially went on sale. Selling agent Ronan O'Driscoll of Savills HOK said it was two years since he had seen the like. Buyers were "responding to good value. The best deals are done in more difficult market situations."
Discussions on the queue were of negative equity and more price cuts to come. Michael Swann, there with his daughter Elaine, a would-be buyer, was of the view that "builders have lived off the riches of the good days for long enough - now they're going to have to bend over backwards to make sales."
Máire, a young Mayo woman, said she was there because prices had dropped. "I'd get a five-bed house in Mayo for €290,000," she said, "but I have to work in Dublin."
Patricia McDonagh was there with daughter Maireád, a nurse in the Mater hospital for whom The Meadows was the right location - and now the right price too.
For Min Wang and her husband Wing, who moved here from China and have three children, Saturday was their first outing in search of a house. "We saw in the newspaper that the prices were reduced," Ms Wang said.