2008Review: COUNTRYESTATES:There are four country houses for every buyer after an annus horribilis in the country market, writes Michael Parsons
THE MOST hotly contested piece of land in Ireland this year wasn't to be found in the countryside at all but in hoity-toity Dalkey. Remember the Battle of Gorse Hill, when broadcaster Pat Kenny laid claim to a scrap of scrubby hillside beside his home with all the tenacity of a cabin-dwelling tenant farmer. Happily, the High Court judge appealed to common sense, sanity ultimately prevailed and an out-of-court settlement drew a welcome veil over proceedings.
But what happened to property prices out beyond the M50 where land disputes are rather more routine? Country house agents describe the year as "shocking" with prices down by as much as 40 per cent to levels last seen five years ago in 2003.
One leading agent said there are now "four country houses for every one buyer". Despite the new reality, they say some vendors are still "in denial" and are sticking to wholly unrealistic - and unattainable - asking prices.
The market has been ravaged by the international financial crisis and the carnage on global stock markets. Demand for landed-gentry style country estates has slowed significantly as the Tiger's tycoons have seen their wealth erode.
And the fashion for converting stately homes into luxury hotels with golf and spa resorts has also evaporated.
Anecdotal evidence suggests that this market is already oversupplied. Sales to overseas buyers have also slumped. Rich investment bankers in London and New York - many of them Irish - who once sought luxury, private rustic retreats for flying visits to hunt, shoot and fish have seen their bonuses, and often their jobs, disappear.
But despite the general consensus that 2008 was an "annus horribilis" there are some positives. Agents say that Ireland's enduringly powerful bloodstock industry and rising prices for agricultural commodities meant that prices for stud farms and holdings of agricultural land have not been impacted quite as badly as those for the "hobby farm" or "trophy estate".
The year began with news that Tynte Park, a Georgian house on 145 acres near Dunlavin in west Wicklow, had been sold for an estimated €12 million - after six months on the market with a price tag of €15 million. A portent of things to come? In early spring, Ms Chenevix Trench, a formidable bibi of the savannah who had settled in Tipperary after the sun set on the British Empire in Kenya, decided to up sticks and move back to England.
She put her home, Lisnamoe, a Regency house on 25 acres at Ballymackey, up for auction with a guide price of €1.65 million.
The house was withdrawn at €1.3 million and sold after negotiations "for above this figure". The winds of change which had swept away her old Africa were whistling up through the Galtee Mountains too and the Irish property market was cooling rapidly.
The most expensive estate to come on the market in 2008 was Castle Annaghs - a 929sq m (10,000sq ft) Georgian house on 550 acres of top-quality agricultural land in south Co Kilkenny. In April, agent Anne Carton of PN O'Gorman sought tenders "in the region of €16 million". Over 40 parties viewed the property - some by air (O tiger, tiger was still burning bright!). A number of tenders were received - all from people with a farming background.
Ms Carton said "unfortunately the sale was not concluded with the highest bidder and we are now in advanced negotiations with a prominent dairy farmer to purchase the estate for an undisclosed sum".
By the autumn, the owners of lovely Annamult House near Mount Juliet bit the bullet and reluctantly sought a buyer at a guide price of €1.85 million - €300,000 less than they had paid at auction three years ago. The house is still on the market.
But there was a smidgen of seasonal cheer recently for Sherry FitzGerald Radford in Wexford which sold Loftus Hall for a price "in the region of the guide" of €1.9m. The large, period "haunted house" in need of "complete renovation" is on 63 acres close to the sea shore at Hook Head.
However, the best sale of the year must surely have been Knight Frank's disposal of Clare Island Lighthouse, which had an AMV of €500,000, but sold at auction for €1.05 million to a German businessman.
So what do the experts predict for the year ahead? Some of the country's leading country house estate agents spoke about their expectations for 2009. Pat O'Hagan and David Ashmore of Savills believe that "by next spring - towards Easter - activity in the country market will start to increase, helped by interest rate cuts and renewed enquiries from overseas". But that is "very much dependent on movements in the wider financial markets" and the "freeing up of finance" by the banks.
At Sherry FitzGerald Countrywide, managing director Ian McCarthy says that because the market for agricultural commodities is strong, especially in Britain, there may be "an uplift in values of land" as investors and pension funds "seek to enhance their portfolios with commodities and commodity producing property".
Edward Townshend of Colliers Jackson-Stops said "country properties never climbed to the dizzy heights of their city counterparts and when the fall in values is taken into account the country house now represents excellent value". But, he believes: "There will be no significant upturn until such time as the banks are recapitalised and start lending again".
Robert Ganly of Knight Frank, who has survived and flourished though previous recessions, points out that "people have to get on with their lives, make decisions, and we all have to live somewhere. It is worth remembering that homes are not investment products, but places to live in, and will always appreciate over the long term".
The Munster country house specialist, Michael H Daniels Co, based at Castletownroche, Co Cork, deals with many exclusive estates which are bought and sold privately without ever coming on the "open" market. Michael Daniels claims there is "still demand for good quality houses in good locations" but there won't be a pick-up in sales until all "the bad [financial] news, as ugly as it may be, is out on the table".
In west Cork - our very own version of the Côte D'Azur and the favourite holiday-home destination for the beau monde - Charles McCarthy of the eponymous estate agency in Skibbereen claims "this recession is not as bad as previous recessions" - recalling a time when "interest rates were 18 per cent". And, he says, "good period properties on the water continue to attract interest".
The outlook for 2009 "depends on what happens in the international banking sector" but he's convinced "there's a lot of cash out there waiting to invest in property".
