15 Reuben Street, RialtoDublin 8
This is a very central location that is becoming gentrified but at a slower rate than some buyers might have hoped. Reuben Street comprises mainly two-bed terraced redbricks and connects South Circular Road with the Fatima Luas stop, a few minutes' walk away.
Number 15 is a house that will scare some buyers and that is why it is interesting to anyone who can see beyond its dark and dingy interconnecting reception rooms, a kitchen cum breakfast room that’s a relic of the 1980s and the avocado suite in the property’s one bathroom. On the plus side it has two double bedrooms, one spanning the width of the house. The property is asking €295,000 through agent Sherry FitzGerald.
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To keep costs down Moran’s advice is to do nothing structurally, as all the works are internal. “Install a new kitchen with roof glazing to bring more light into the northeast-facing space, replace the bathroom suite and open up the window in it to stream light through.
“Upgrade the laminate flooring and old carpets. Repaint and repair water leakage in the extension. In a turnaround time of eight weeks and a cost of €40,000 this house would look and feel completely different,” he reckons.
Advice: If the house can be purchased for €255,000 or €260,000, rather than its €295,000 asking price, then the outlay, with renovations, will cost about €295,000 to €300,000. This is about right as an end-of-terrace house will cost about €10,000 to €15,000 above the asking price of a mid-terrace property.
Price comparison: Number 53, a refurbed two-bed property with a larger-looking garden and an attic conversion sold through Youngs estate agents in September 2015 for €285,000.
78 Cowper Road, Ranelagh, Dublin 6
Cowper Road is one of Dublin 6’s most hotly pursued addresses and features mixed house styles, from detached trophy homes – one of which recently sold for €3.25 million – to the more modest terraced houses built in the 1920s. Number 78 Cowper Road is one such property. It has three bedrooms, plus an original attic room and measures 106sq m. The house is asking €795,000 through agent DNG.
It is one of the last remaining properties in original condition, has lovely matching Dublin slate mantlepieces in its interconnecting reception rooms and a small scullery-style kitchen to the rear, housed in a wooden structure.
Upstairs are three bedrooms – two doubles and a single on the first floor – and an attic room that is original to the house.
“This house needs everything done to it and you will see little change from €165,000,” Moran says. “It will have to be replumbed, rewired, heating and new windows installed and it needs insulating.”
There is potential to extend out the back to create a large open-plan kitchen/living room with a utility and guest wc. Currently, the house has one bathroom, set on the first floor with the toilet and bath separate. These works, Moran estimates, would cost €75,000.
There is also scope to extend the attic room into the eaves to the front to make this room bigger and add a zinc-clad dormer window to the rear that could transform this into a master bedroom with en suite, all subject to planning permission. This would cost another €20,000.
The house itself needs insulation, new windows, central heating, rewiring, new bathroom flooring and a full paint job. This would cost another €70,000.
There is vehicular rear access to the south-facing garden, which is a boon. However the area might be more use landscaped as a sunny outdoor space, settling for on-street parking.
Advice: Try and talk to the neighbours to see what they've done in their homes.
Price comparison: These terraced houses rarely come to market. Number 34 Cowper Road, a similar style of property, but bigger, measuring 204sq m, came to market in 2009 asking €1.8million and sold in 2013 for €1.514,750, according to the Property Price Register.
22 The Crescent, Fairview, Dublin 3
Number 22 The Crescent is a two-storey over basement listed terraced Georgian house set back from Clontarf Road and overlooking a small half-moon shaped green, now named after the terrace's most famous resident, Bram Stoker.
The location is first rate but the house, which is subdivided into four self-contained flats, has been on the market for a year. The property is asking €650,000 through agent Gallagher Quigley and the owners have turned down an offer of €600,000.
While the hall has lovely period plasterwork and there’s an original mantelpiece in the front room at hall level, these are the only features that remain. It’s an interesting proposition but turning this house back into a family home would be expensive and perhaps impractical with 50-plus steps from the bottom of the house to the top. The apartments need upgrading and Moran’s recommendation is, rather than returning the house to a single family home, to keep the property in flats, and thus keep structural works to a minimum. Upgrade the kitchens, bathrooms, flooring, replace the electric storage heaters with gas-fired central heating and then live in one flat and generate an income by renting out the others.
Advice: "To turn this into a well-functioning, three-bedroom family home again will require some clever design thinking. As it stands bedrooms would be spread across several floors with one ending up beside the sittingroom on the first floor, which won't suit everyone. The smarter option is to keep the house in flats, modernise them, and get them looking fresh and sharp. Even at that, the cost of a new heating system, four bathrooms, four kitchens, flooring, décor and the attention the rear landscaping – including excavation to remedy damp in the basement – to bring them up to regulation standards, will bring the works to over €150,000."
Originally the property had a 150-foot long rear garden but the opportunity to build a mews to the rear has already been optimised.
Price comparison: Number 4, a nine-bedroom, five bathroom property in flats with no garden, came to market last February asking €450,000 but was taken off in April. Number 8 Marino Crescent sold for €627,000 in May 2015 before the mortgage lending changes.
Number 15, Bram Stoker’s birthplace, which was in need of complete modernisation but with full back garden and potential to develop, came to market in January 2012 asking €750,000, dropped to €570,000 by April and sold for €500,000 in March 2013. In terms of rental income a one-bedroom, one-bathroom furnished property was recently advertised to let asking €1,200 per month at number 3, The Crescent. moranbuilders.ie
