Auction time again on Orwell

The end of the summer signals the start of the property season and estate agent DNG is kicking off with an auction on September 24th when it puts 12 Orwell Park,Rathgar, Dublin 6, under the hammer.

The AMV on the five-bedroom house is €1.75 million. Auctions were once a weekly feature on the property calendar with many taking place in Dublin every week for houses at the upper end of the price scale. But as the market stalled and buyers were reluctant or unable to make the speedy decision that the auction system demands, they fell out of favour. There were some auctions in the past year, typically in Dublin 6 or 4, with Lisney more than any other agent venturing back into the auction rooms.

"There are many reasons for putting 12 Orwell Park to auction," says Pat Mullery of DNG, "not least that it's one of only two similar houses on the road so it is unusual. Also it's a very popular, sought after road with a recent history of strong sales." Indeed the "Sold" sign has just gone up next door to number 12 on Fernhurst, a grand detached late-Victorian house, owned by the composer Bill Whelan. It came on the market in May with an asking price of €3.795 million.

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Different

Number 12 Orwell Park is a very different house to its detached neighbour although it was built at the same time. It has three reception rooms and five bedrooms over 248sq m (2670sq ft) and is semi-detached. An executors’ sale, it has been lived in by the same family for 60 years. The family who lived here before them stayed an equally long time so this is very much the sort of home where people put down roots.

Entrance to the house is via a porch to the side – smart and practical porch doors of a sympathetic design were commissioned by the current owners decades ago. Off the hall are three good-sized reception rooms, one has a deep bay window, while the two others interconnect and open out into the back patio.

Down a couple of stairs is a breakfastroom and off it is a large kitchen. New owners will almost certainly update the kitchen units and while it is a large space, they may consider extending.

Potential

This is a semi-detached house and the adjoining house has just completed such an extension so a peek over the wall might give new owners some ideas. There is a pedestrian entrance to the side and the garden is 30m long so there is scope to extend in several ways. Upstairs there are five bedrooms – all good-sized doubles and all with the original sash windows that add to this house’s attractiveness. The bathroom, which was extended over the porch, comes complete with baby pink sanitary ware – a sign, perhaps, of when this house last underwent major renovation.

Off the hall, beside the front door, there is a guest toilet which was recently modernised. To the front there is off- street parking for two cars.