VIRTUALLY UNMISSABLE
29 BEECHWOOD PARK
Ranelagh Dublin 6
€725,000
LIKE everyone else, estate agents are having to adapt to new ways of doing business during lockdown. And so, while ‘in person’ viewings are on hold in terms of properties available for sale (viewings for rental properties are continuing in certain circumstances), agents are getting to grips with the technology that will allow them to show the properties on their books to prospective purchasers.
Jane Young, of Young’s, invited me to be a guinea pig for her first group virtual viewing of 29 Beechwood Park, an attractive two-bedroom semi-detached house located off the desirable address of Dunville Avenue in Dublin 6. Until this point, she told me, she had been conducting viewings over the phone with each individual, talking them through the pictures and video on their screen.
No 29 was first launched on to the market at 9.30am last Tuesday morning and Jane reported that she had had 17 separate enquiries expressing interest in joining a virtual viewing by the time that she and I spoke last Wednesday afternoon.
Jane’s preferred choice of app is Zoom, with which many of us have become familiar over the past few weeks. The rules for a virtual group viewing, she explained to me, are that participants keep their microphones on mute, and ask any questions via the chat feature on the app.
If anyone has any technical problems, she encourages them to drop out of the group viewing and she will schedule a separate individual viewing afterwards.
I had wondered whether Jane would be in the property herself, but in fact, she is at her desk, and runs the video that she has of No 29 while simultaneously talking me through what I can see on screen.
The video gives a good sense of the house, and Jane regularly refers back to the floor plans on screen to explain how the rooms relate to one another.
The video of No 29 was shot before the current lockdown and lingers on some of the attractive period features of the house. And with hindsight, Jane feels that she might have paid less attention to the period details in favour of more basic coverage focussed on clarifying the layout, had she foreseen how the video was likely to be used.
Despite this, No 29 comes across very well on screen. It’s located in a quiet horseshoe culde-sac opposite a row of good and useful shops on Dunville Avenue, which includes a proper hardware store and The Best of Italy, an excellent greengrocer that stocks just about every delicious Italian ingredient that you can think of. (No one ever runs out of pasta around here.)
On hot days during the summer, local children line up here for an ice-cream treat after school — there is an entrance to Scoil Bhríde from Beechwood Park. Gaelscoil Lios na nÓg is also located on Oakley Road and there is a good choice of secondary schools within walking distance.
Also on Dunville Avenue is the institution that is Morton’s, a well-stocked, small, upmarket supermarket, with a Lawlor’s butcher counter, as well as a pharmacy, boutique, gift/stationery store, furniture shop and Green Beards, which cold presses the most delicious juices. Peperina, an Italian restaurant, is popular with locals.
To the front of the house is a front garden in lawn — parking is on street with permits for residents. To the right of the entrance hall is a drawing room, with a feature sandstone fireplace, that occupies the bay-windowed room to the front of the house; this interconnects with the dining room to the rear.
In the return is the kitchen with a sun room that opens out onto the paved garden to the rear.
The vendor purchased the property 10 years ago and, having no need for three bedrooms, incorporated the small box room to the front of the house, over the front door, into the main bedroom.
The stud wall that was removed to facilitate this could easily be reinstated if this third bedroom at first-floor level was required. The second double bedroom, to the rear of the house, is en suite and there is also a family bathroom.
Upstairs, the attic space has been converted and is currently arranged as a bedroom, but could make a useful home office.
Within half an hour of the Zoom viewing, Jane phoned to let me know that 16 of the 17 prospective purchasers who had said that they would join the viewing had logged on, and that she already had an offer of €650,000 (accompanied by proof of funds) from one of those who had attended virtually, as well as expressions of interest from others, one noting that they would need to view in person before making an offer.
“We are not where we need to be yet,” she told me, noting that the offer was €75,000 under the asking price, “but I’m taking that as an encouraging sign that we will be able to keep progressing transactions during this time”.
“In the case of No 29, the house is empty so if a surveyor is able to visit, then we would be able to facilitate that in a contact-less way.
“The only stumbling block that I can see is that the crew who normally shoot our videos are not available to work at the moment, so we have a bit of a backlog of properties that are ready to go to market but for which we do not have video footage available.”