The country-house market has wilted since overseas buyers baulked at boom prices. Will they return now that prices – and stamp duty have fallen?
OUR economic woe has generated plenty of unwelcome international media attention. Even Country Life,the bible of Britain's landed gentry had a pop with its recent tongue-in-cheek preview of the year ahead predicting the collapse of the Euro by July 2011 when: "Ireland announces that shamrocks and emeralds are now the only legal tender". Ouch.
Country Lifereaders are among the most affluent in Britain – and indeed, the world – with an average household income of £126,000. Despite continuing economic gloom in Britain (Ireland is by no means alone) the country-house market over there appears to be recovering after what Country Lifedescribed as "the market's nadir in 2009".
The magazine has reported "a 42 per cent rise in the number of country properties advertised in Country Lifein 2010" compared with the previous year. But its readers are also keen purchasers of overseas property.
In its last readership survey, the magazine found that 51 per cent said they intended to buy international property “within three years” and they have big property budgets with the average intended spend set at over £546,000. In the pre-Celtic Tiger years, British buyers looked to Ireland for “bargains” but that all changed when Irish land prices soared.
But is the Irish market now considered to offer value? And will buyers return here?
Last week, nestled amongst the weekly magazine’s famously glossy images for lavish properties in London and the Home Counties was a full page advertisement: “Ireland – quality properties at affordable prices”.
"Affordable" is not a word which often appears in Country Life, where ads still frequently feature Caribbean villas or Swiss ski chalets so exclusive that the term "Price on application" still applies.
Clearly the agent, Knight Frank, whose Dublin office placed the ad, seems to believe that the fall in prices coupled with a message proclaiming that “Ireland benefits from the lowest residential stamp duty in Europe” may spark interest among rich Britons and expatriate Irish seeking a country house, estate or smart city residence.
The ad featured nine properties spread throughout Ireland. They included Georgestown House – a 110-acre estate and stud farm near Kill, Co Waterford owned by Dublin businessman Pat Garvey and his wife, Rita.
The asking price was listed as €3.4 million – but didn’t refer to the price cut of €500,000 since last summer when it appeared on the Irish market for €3.9 million.
The Mount Kennedy estate, a Georgian house on 170 acres near Newtownmountkennedy in Co Wicklow, was advertised with a price of €6.5 million (down from the €7.75 million being asked here just last September).
Some of the properties didn’t have their specific location indicated. A five-storey townhouse with a price of €1.95 million beneath a photograph of a Georgian interior was listed as simply being located in : “Dublin 2” while a villa, for €3 million, was sited in “Dublin 14 on c. 1 acre” .
Only one of the nine properties featured merited the coveted “price on application” tag: A house on 17 acres on the shores of Lough Derg, Co Tipperary.
Will these prices tempt buyers? Despite the public and political furore, the big London investment banks are continuing to pay out billions in bonuses – much of which traditionally flows into the country-house market. Irish properties will be competing for this largesse in a market which faces stiff competition from country-houses in the English shires and Scottish estates – not to mention “still cheap” rural France.
The upper tiers of London’s financial district are teeming with well-paid Irish executives. But whether they believe that prices “at home” have reached a realistic or “affordable” level remains to be seen.
Until they do, there is unlikely to be any significant activity at the upper end of the Irish country-house market.
