DALKEY/€675,000:Agent Peter Kenny of Colliers Jackson-Stops is brushing up his auction skills for February 25th, when this four-bedroom house built in 1947 goes under the hammer in an executors' sale. It has an AMV of €675,000.

It’s a very modest price for a house in the heart of Sandycove/Dalkey, right on the corner of Castlepark Road and Hyde Road, beside the former Mackey’s garden centre. It’s realistic, however, for Doonecoy needs everything done to it.

The 145sq m (1,562sq ft) house is a solid, traditional home with plenty of room to expand. And it has good-sized gardens front and back, carefully tended by their late owner, and there’s a magnolia, an apple tree and a range of specimen plants.

Existing accommodation includes an interconnecting livingroom and diningroom downstairs, with a kitchen/breakfastroom – with an Aga – at the back. New owners would likely build a new kitchen spanning the whole back of the house. There’s room to extend too into the attic, as neighbouring houses have done.

A lane at the back of the garden leads into a long double garage, which opens onto Castlepark Road, right beside the former Mackey’s centre.

This large site, directly behind Doonecoy and several other houses on this corner, is awaiting redevelopment: although the developer has so far failed to get permission to build new homes here, it seems probable that it will eventually be built on. But new owners of Doonecoy might plant trees to protect the privacy of the property.

Doonecoy, Hyde Road, Dalkey, Co Dublin

Four-bedroom detached house needing modernisation with good-sized gardens front and rear

Agent: Colliers Jackson-Stops