AS CHRISTMAS and 2009 loom some vendors are cutting prices to get buyers off the fence.

Number 7 Claremont Road in Howth has a new asking price of €3.75m, down from €4.8m, a drop of €1.05m or 22 per cent. For sale through Savills, the four-bed Georgian-style home first came on the market in August. It ticks all the boxes for a trophy home with 418sq m (4,500sq ft) of space and three large reception rooms. A large basement could be used as a gym, music room or home cinema.

Gunne Residential is asking €1.95m for an Edwardian semi - 4 Proby Square off Carysfort Avenue in Blackrock, Co Dublin - which is a 29 per cent drop from the original price of €2.75m. The house has been on the market a number of times in the past five years. In September 2003 it sold for €1.625m with 0.25 acres of rear and side garden with development potential. The following year the house sold with a substantially reduced garden for €1.5m. The six-bed, 300sq m (3,200sq ft) house is in a cul-de-sac.

Gunne Residential has also recently reduced the price on 23 Balcartie in Roganstown Golf Country Club in Swords. The five-bed came on the market in October 2007 at €2.05m. At the start of 2008 this was reduced to €1.925m. Another reduction at the start of the summer brought the price to €1.675m. By the end of the summer the price was €1.4m and in the last two weeks the price dropped to €1.2m - a cut of 41.5 per cent on the original price.

In Booterstown, Co Dublin 80 St Helen's Road has been reduced from €1.2m to €850,000 - a fall of 29 per cent. For sale through Lisney, the 143sq m (1,550sq ft) house has a formal drawingroom, a diningroom and a breakfast room that leads into a kitchen overlooking the rear garden. To the side of the property there's a utility room, shower room and a garage with double doors to the front. Upstairs there are four bedrooms and the attic has been converted. The south-east facing back garden is in lawn.

A three-bed house in Clontarf has been reduced from €675,000 to €525,000 by Gunne. Number 27 Dollymount Park in D3 came on the market in May and since then the price has been reduced four times. The terraced house has 110sq m (1,118sq ft) of space.

In D4, 13 St John's Park Avenue in Sandymount is a two-bed townhouse quoting €570,000, down from €660,000. Bennetts Auctioneers is the selling agent. Close to the Dart, it has 66sq m (710sq ft), including a kitchen with fitted units and a livingroom with a stone fireplace.

Also in D4, Bennetts is quoting €440,000 for 19 Aikenhead Terrace, Stella Gardens, Irishtown - it has been reduced from €520,000. The mid-terrace house has 60sq m (645sq ft), two bedrooms and a rear patio garden. Downstairs is a livingroom with wood flooring, a diningroom and a kitchen with Shaker presses and a tiled floor.