All the signs are that there will be quite a scramble for the next phase of apartments being released today in the tax-driven Custom House Square development in the Dublin docklands. Agents Douglas Newman Good have logged a few hundred enquiries for 98 apartments which are expected to sell mainly to investors.
There will be 49 one-bedroom apartments, with floor areas between 444 and 541 sq ft, priced from £165,000 to £190,000; 44 two-bedroom units, with 668 to 836 sq ft, are available from £225,000 to £290,000. Bookings are also to be taken for five three-bedroom homes with about 948 sq ft and costing between £300,000 and £350,000. Car-parking spaces are a £25,000 option, but owner-occupiers are likely to buy spaces rather than rent in the expensive multi-storey car-park nearby.
The first tranche of apartments in Custom House Square offered for sale from plans 16 months ago was snapped up. At least 60 of the 268 were retained for renting by the developers, Chesterbridge Developments, and most of the others were bought by investors.
While the apartments seemed pricey at the time (£110,000 to £135,000 for one-bedroom units) the market has continued to strengthen and a marginally bigger one-bed unit will now cost at least £50,000 more than in the first phase. The new price structure works out at an average of £370 to £394 per sq ft. This is the highest price in the city centre, representing a considerable premium because Custom House Square is one of the few developments outside Temple Bar which can still offer Section 23 tax breaks. Investors and owner-occupiers are likely to be able to claim a high percentage of the original tax allowances provided they retain the homes for 10 years.
Anyone who had doubts that the Sheriff Street flats area could ever be turned around can only be highly impressed. Custom House Square is now as much a part of the financial services centre as Dermot Desmond's office block, or the original apartments built by Hardwicke and British Land.
Most of 268 apartments in the first phase are occupied, including units in three particularly distinctive blocks, two of them five-storey buildings with central glazed atriums, the other an unusual circular "drum" building clad in timber and surrounded by water.
The latest apartments going for sale (there will be 272 in all) are in two of the four blocks built around a courtyard. Douglas Newman Good will be opening three showflats today. These units all have good proportions, greatly helped by nine foot high floor-to-ceiling heights. The combined livingroom/diningrooms in both the one and two-bedroom apartments are both spacious and bright and all of them have fullheight windows opening to balconies.
Kitchens off the livingrooms are bigger and better finished than most in the inner city with a range of Shaker-style wall and floor units and stainless-steel hoods over the hob areas. Homes are heated by natural gas central heating.
There are en suite bathrooms with the main bedrooms in most of the two and three-bedroom apartments.
