Bidding wars in Ballyfermot’s ‘active market’
VALUES are up 8pc in Ballyfermot following an odd but generally active year which saw a surge in the opening half, a lull in the middle and a resumption of frantic activity in November and December. But it was nothing on the previous year’s worrying runaway value surge of 16pc.
Two and three bed former Corpo homes tend to carry the same value here given that the bathroom is usually downstairs in the latter but upstairs in the former.
In RTÉ’s Find Me a Home, viewers met three generations of the Eichelberger family, who had been living in Ballyfermot for five years. Shannon, Eugene and their two adult children loved their home in Ballyfermot but found it a tight squeeze in a three-bed terrace. They had already converted the shed in the garden for Shannon’s mother, Jude, who spends six months of the year in Florida and six months with them in Ballyfermot. With their two children moving back home, they were in need of more space.
Four-bedroom houses in Ballyfermot are as rare as hens’ teeth. The Eichelbergers ended up in a bidding war and eventually paid the highest price achieved in Ballyfermot in 11 years, according to local agent Roger Berkeley. The house they bought at 213 Ballyfermot Road had originally gone on the market at €290,000 and sold for €345,000. Other strong results were seen at 32 Lally Road, where a property purchased for €171,100 in 2017 returned to the market and sold for €287,000 in 2018, and O’Hogan Road, where an end-ofterrace house done up to a very high standard with an architect achieved €291,000.
“There was a bigger emphasis on houses in good condition during 2018. Faced with a property that needs lots of work, many potential purchasers lose heart. It’s a combination of factors: time, budget, two parents working; the personal cost of a renovation project is huge.”
The market is dominated by firsttime buyers, with investors largely absent. Our agent predicts more of the same in 2019, with values rising in the first half of the year and plateauing thereafter.