A peek at property sales from 2019
REPORTER DAVID MEDCALF SPENT HOURS UPON HOURS IN A DARKENED ROOM WITH ONLY HIS LAPTOP FOR COMPANY, PORING OVER THE COUNTY WICKLOW RETURNS ON THE RESIDENTIAL PROPERTY PRICE REGISTER FOR THE YEAR JUST ENDED
ILIVE in a perfectly fine house, in a perfectly fine locality with perfectly fine neighbours. I expect to remain resident there until carried out of the premises in a wooden box. I do not consider myself an envious person, though I like to think that I am blessed with a lively and curious mind.
I now hereby confess that my curiosity extends to house prices; curiosity about the cost of buildings which I will certainly never own, which I do not desiretoownandwhichIwillprobably never even see. My partner dismisses this pre-occupation with other people’s accommodation as ‘property porn’ while I prefer to regard it as an innocent indulgence, like stamp collecting or reading detective fiction.
Whether it is a serious addiction or a slightly eccentric hobby, it is allowed full rein on the website propertypriceregister.ie. The site is an official, State-backed initiative, and it has been logging house sales throughout the Republic since 2010, giving the price paid and a brief (very, very brief ) summary of each property
Vendors and purchasers may consider that their transactions are a private matter but here, online, the beans are discreetly spilled for all to see. Yes, they are all here across the range – from hovels in need of substantial re-building to sumptuous billionaire pads complete with swimming pools and gate lodges.
The identity of those who sell and of those who buy are not disclosed but all the information which is divulged on the website is generally reliable and always dispassionate – no tittle-tattle or hyperbole. Full-blown property porn addicts may prefer the flowery prose of the estate agents with their talk of ‘perioddwellings’or‘superblocations’. But the Property Price Register strips the business of house or apartment sales back to the essentials of date, price and address – as simple as that.
Visitors to the site may search for particular homes, or particular dates, or particular estates, or particular towns–thescopeforplayingaround with the data is limitless.
So it was that I decided to conduct a comprehensive review of the private housing market in County Wicklow during the year past. Given a laptop and some basic software, I can consider myself at the cutting edge of social and economic research.
First things first: the register recorded 1,886 house sales throughout the 12 months of the year 2019 in the County of Wicklow – that is a rate of more than five sales each day. More than half of these sales were concluded in the last four and a half months, suggesting that people prefer to go home hunting in summer, leaving the solicitors to tie up the details in autumn.
The figure of 1,886 for 2019 is a significant step up from the 718 deals concluded back in 2010 when, Wicklow was still licking the wounds inflicted by the Celtic Tiger.
The graph slumped lower still to 576 in 2011, before the post-crash revival began with 789 in 2012; 988 in 2013; 1,339 in 2014; 1,412 in 2015; 1,443 in 2016; and 1,670 in 2017. The surge stalled somewhat at 1,621 in 2018 before recovering to the 1,886 mark in the twelve months just finished, a figure which covers a multitude of styles, locations and affordability.
The average was somewhere in the region of €347,000 (hereinafter referred to in the form €347K) but surely no house is a mere average.
Some canny investor snapped up 20 John Paul Avenue in Arklow last October for the bargain price of €15K – loose change to anyone with savings or an inheritance. The register is too discreet to delve into the reasons why any house on the Ireland of 2019 should be valued at less than the price of modest family motor car.
The John Paul Avenue deal was struck just a few days before the eye-watering sum of €11.585 million was shelled out for ‘dwellings and land’ at Luggala in Roundwood at the end of the same month. The Luggala sale was the stuff of national news, with photos posted of a palatial residence which, with its white plasterwork and arches, is suggestive of a Foreign Legion fortress without any of the Saharan hardship.
The place also had plenty of well-connected associations – meat and drink to us property pornographers. The nice lady in the ‘Irish Times’ reported helpfully that Guinness heir Garech Browne lived there. It was put on the market in 2017 and the deceased’s family trust hoped at one stage to persuade some rich sucker to part with €28 million to become owner of an estate said to have ‘significant scientific and biodiversity value’. At that rate, the €11-plus million eventually agreed begins to sound like a bargain.
At least two dozen seven-figure deals were struck during the year across the county, notably the €2.57 million required in April to part ProspectHouseinNewcastlefromthe seller. While Enniskerry, Delgany and Greystones were all well represented among the two dozen, the thought occurs that Delgany may be one of the most desired and desirable places to live in all of Wicklow. The price register allows the casual researcher to come to swift conclusions on this matter, with the facts seeming to bear out this proposition.
Where the average house/apartment cost was around €340K across the entire county during 2019, in Delgany youmightexpecttopay€541K–that is a premium of around 59 per cent. It was possible, of course, to pick up a modest little starter home in Priory Court for under €220K but the most significant action was up several rungs fromthere.
Houses in Church View traded at around the €400K mark and Priory Rise was a notch above that on the list of 51 Delgany entries on the register. The average figure was dragged well past the half million mark by the four houses which changed hands for €1.2 million or more – 8 Glenair Manor, Montery in Kindlestown; Apartment 1 in Laurel Grove; and Templecarrig House.
Given the distorting effect of such heavyweight deals, perhaps it may be more meaningful to cite the median sale, number 26 on the list. The Delgany median turns out to have been the €418K shelled out in October for 14 Priory Drive, Edengate.
The busiest and biggest property market of the lost was Bray, which had 270 entries in the register for 2019, at an average of €388K. Eleven of the 270wereinthemature,desirableand leafy Wolfe Tone Square estate, where Number 61 was worth €198K to the new owner in September.
A few weeks later, in October, just around the corner, Number 69 Wolfe Tone Square West was acquired for the slightly princelier sum of €314k. The website cannot explain such differences in a town where the landmark sale was the €1,250 million stumped up for ‘Edgewood’ on Bray’s King EdwardRoad.
One of the snazziest estates in the county, if not the country, must be Avoca Wood up the river from Arklow in the village of Avoca. Avoca addresses, with their Ballykissangel sheen, are obviously attractive, though the average price of €309K is not extraordinary. But Avoca Wood pre-dominated at the top of the local price league during the year under review. Number 24 with its four bedrooms and five bathrooms was soldfor€425K,Number2for€485K and Number 4 broke the half-million barrier, weighing in at €535K – phew!
The website is crammed with all manner of nuggets to fascinate the property nerd.
Stratford-on-Slaney, for example, featured five times on the 2019 list at an average price of €250K – the most expensive being a place called Mountain View House at €380K.
Meanwhile, Aughrim, which is even further away than Stratford from the madness of the Dublin property market had a lower average of around €232K for its 27 transactions, though ‘Craffield’ attracted €868K for its five bedroomed splendour. A quick Google reveals that ‘Craffield’ extends to eight acres and nestles into a south facing valley with pasturage extending down to the River Ow.
Blessington made the list 76 times, across the spectrum from the modest €30K paid for 27 Woodleigh Avenue to the €675K which was forthcoming from the new owners of the Old Rectory. The average was a smidge over €274K.
Two properties with Rathdrum addresses changed hands for sums which exceeded the half million mark, both on the Greenane side of town – Hogg’s Farm and Greenanemore but €249 was more the average. Rathdrum had a particularly lively property market during the twelve months as houses in a succession of estates were completed.
Eleven houses in Killian’s Glen were snapped up, at prices from €211K to €286K – a total topping €2.5 million – but Killian’s Glen was only in the ha’penny place. No less than 23 homes were purchased in the Woodpark estate, yielding a total of almost €5.5 million and the record in Viewmount was almost identical – 23 sales, totting up a few K under €5.5 million.
THE THOUGHT OCCURS THAT DELGANY MAY VERY WELL BE ONE OF THE MOST DESIRED AND DESIRABLE PLACES TO LIVE IN ALL OF WICKLOW