Lower Baggot Street apartments make a return

A development of 25 apartments at 18 Lower Baggot Street, a receivership sale, are discounted by up to 60 per cent since they first came to market, in 2006.

At that time the one-beds were asking from €650,000, and the two-beds from €1.03 million; five properties sold. Seven years later the asking prices – from €250,000 for a 53sq m (570sq ft) one-bed and from €380,000 for a 76sq m (818sq ft) two-bed – appear bullish when compared with some city centre schemes.

The site was developed by O’Sullivan and Maguire – which ran a townhouse hotel and bar from 19-22 Lower Baggot Street– as an apartment block with three units in the original Georgian house and another 22 on the site of the mews houses, backing on to Fitzwilliam Lane.

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Since the crash the properties have been rented. O'Sullivan and Maguire went into receivership late last year and they're now being sold by agents Savills as rental leases expire.

The apartments are ageing gracefully. In the Georgian part of the development a roomy 60sq m (646sq ft) one-bed first-floor apartment with high ceilings and sash windows is asking €320,000. It has a large open-plan living/ kitchen/diningroom and a northeast-facing rear terrace.

An 89sq m (958sq ft) two-bed apartment in the modern block, with one parking space and south-facing balcony, is asking €440,000.

In the area, a similar development of 27 apartments at 18-21 Mount Street Lower has one remaining unit – a 130sq m garden-level two-bed – for sale through Bee Bee Developments for €525,000; there’s an offer of €550,000 on it.

Number four Grand Canal Wharf, a 93sq m first-floor two-bed apartment with water views, is asking €275,000 through Sherry FitzGerald. A similar-sized three-bed on the sixth floor at Forbes Quay in Grand Canal Dock is asking €370,000 through Owen Reilly.

The Baggot Street apartments are being sold as seen, including furniture, bedding and crockery. An investor could rent immediately. The one-bed apartments were asking €1,700 per month for a 12-month lease and €2,250 per month on a short-term lease last March.