December 2015 tied up neatly with eight homes in Dublin selling for prices of more than €2 million, achieving nearly €23 million in total. Of the six offered on the open market, four sold for substantially more than their asking prices.

Aylesbury, a detached Victorian on an acre of grounds on Glenageary’s Adelaide Road, sold through Turley Property Advisors for €3.1 million – 15 per cent above its €2.7 million asking price. The result is still quite a way off the reported €7 million paid for the 390sq m (4,200sq ft) property by its former owner in 2006.

One of Dublin’s most exclusive roads, Vico Road in Dalkey, fared well in December. Sunnyside, an attractive Victorian villa, exceeded its €3.75 million asking price by 16 per cent, selling for €4.35 million through Hunters.

The house has been owned for years by a solicitor who is moving to a larger house, in Killiney, a difficult feat considering he extended Sunnyside to more than 520sq m (5,600sq ft).

A few doors down, Hawk Cliff, a 278sq m house in need of upgrading, sold for €2.7 million – 26 per cent above its €2.145 million asking price. It was reportedly last sold in 2006 for more than €5.5 million. It was sold this time by Savills on behalf of a receiver.

The biggest success story of the month was in Ranelagh, where DNG sold 5 Albany Road for €3.1 million – 94 per cent over its €1.6 million asking price. The double-fronted Victorian house, which is in need of total refurbishment, has an unusually large, south-facing rear garden. The price marks an exceptional turnaround in values on the road considering that number 28, a house with an equally large garden, sold for €1.46 million in 2010.

The December sale represents a price per square metre of €16,230. In 2006, a renovated semidetached house three doors away sold for €16,290 a square metre, and featured a garden equally long but less wide than that of No 5.