House prices rise four per cent in Wicklow

HOUSE prices in Wicklow rose by four per cent in the final three months of 2016.

The average price of a house now in the Garden County is €283,000, 39 per cent above its lowest point, according to new figures released. Prices in October, November and December 2016 were four per cent higher than a year previously, compared to the rise of nine per cent noticed a year ago.

According to the latest house price report released by Daft.ie, the average price of a one bed apartment is €112,000. A two bedroomed terrace will set you back €149,000 on average.

A three bed semi-detached house on average costs €213,000, while a four bed bungalow is priced at €413,000. The average price for a five bed detached house in County Wicklow stands at €441,000.

Nationally, house prices rose by eight per cent during 2016.

The national average asking price in the final quarter of 2016 was €220,500, compared to €204,000 a year ago and €164,000 at its lowest point.

In Dublin, prices have risen by an average of €102,000, or 46.2 per cent, from their lowest point in mid-2012.

Outside the capital, the average increase has been €48,000, or 36 per cent since the end of 2013.

There was a also noticeable fall-off in the total number of properties for sale nationwide in the final three months of the year, having been largely stable up to that point. I BLAME the cheese. All of the 20-odd types of cheese I bought for Christmas. And the bread. The brown, the white, the sourdough, the sundried tomato and herb, the crackers, the lemon meringue, the After Eights and the Quality Street. I blame it all – but mostly I blame the cheese for making me look like a little barrel this New Year.

It’s a myth that Christmas dinner makes you fat. Turkey and ham and Brussels sprouts do not make you fat. It’s all the little extras that you lob into your trolley as you go around the supermarket in that last mental pre- Christmas dash that make you fat.

Himself is looking a little rounder too. He insists that the jeans I bought him for Christmas have shrunk in the wash. I didn’t bother telling him I haven’t washed them yet!

The last straw came when he saw an old photo of me on Facebook, when I was about a stone lighter and all skinny looking. ‘Who’s that?’ He asked. ‘It’s me, you eejit.’ He looked at me in amazement and then back at the photo. ‘Is it? Jaysus, it is too.’

My own husband didn’t recognise me. Mind you, to be honest I did a bit of a double take myself. That was the turning point. Time to get my fat ass in gear and find that svelte someone buried deep inside me.

Trouble is, I’m exceptionally good at talking about getting fit – but not so much at actually doing it. Himself plays a few games of tennis and gives up biscuits for a week and he loses half a stone. I talk about it incessantly and put on two pounds.

So we’ve made a pact. I’m not to buy any rubbish for the next month and he promises not to eat any rubbish up in my face. No nuts, no crisps, no cheese, no magnums. I draw the line at bread. I simply cannot operate without bread so to compromise I’ve bought that healthy option stuff that tastes like aeroboard in the hope that I won’t want to eat it because it tastes so bloody awful.

We’re one day in and already I’ve had my face pressed up against a delicatessen window drooling at their cheese display. Himself says his jeans already feel a bit looser because he only had three spuds last night!

‘ You do know you don’t just lose weight overnight?’ I ask him testily.

He smiles knowingly. ‘Ah yeah, but I have a very fast metabolism.’

I will KILL him if he loses more than me. Pass the kale!