A stepping stone for €700,000

Stepping Stone, a charity that provides transitional housing for people who are homeless, is selling one of its houses. The charity has owned 79 Ranelagh Road for 30 years and now the changing needs of its service users means that selling this period house should enable it to buy four, more suitable, self-contained units, which will ideally be small houses. At one time, older single men were the organisation's main clients; now there is a growing number of couples and small families, as well as single women and men of all ages that need transitional accommodation while they move, thanks to the organisation's support, from homelessness into permanent accommodation.

The charity waited until the clients who lived in the house had moved on to stable accommodation and the house is now vacant, but the timing of the sale may prove lucky for Stepping Stone. Prices in Ranelagh have risen sharply in recent months and Lisney is putting it up for auction on Thursday, May 29th, with a guide price of €700,000.

The house is a typical Victorian terraced redbrick and from the front it shows no sign that it has been anything other than a single family home. The rear view is different. A large fire escape is in place in the small garden – the mews was sold off years ago. The house is two storeys over garden level with 200sq m (2,150sq ft) of space and inside has been laid out to suit the needs of the service users. There are several bedrooms at basement level and on the top floor, while the hall floor has two interconnecting reception rooms and a kitchen on the return.

Most of its original period features, fireplaces and the rest, are long gone. Indeed its current layout doesn’t really matter as buyers will almost certainly, when they get the necessary planning permission, rip everything out and start again, renovating from top to bottom and possible extending out to the 12m (39ft) back garden. They may also consider applying for planning for off-street parking in the front garden – something of a must on this no-parking side of the road.

Easy access to public transport and proximity to schools and shops are key criteria for Stepping Stone – which is why Ranelagh suited it for so many years. Money from the sale will, hopefully, go a lot further in an equally well serviced location close to the city centre.