Around the Block: It's time for vendors to get realistic - that's the message coming loud and clear from estate agents who are walking a fine line between wanting to attract new business and not get their clients' hopes up with unrealistic price expectations.
Viewings were fairly quiet over last weekend, with houses that might have attracted 60 to 100 viewers earlier in the year getting just 20 or 30 people through the door, with plenty of nosey neighbours included.
The first wave of auctions next week should give a good indication as to how the season will pan out, but meanwhile agents are telling customers that, with such a vast number of houses on the market, the selling process may take longer than usual - particularly in areas with a cluster of auction signs up.
The huge number of properties that have suddenly appeared on the market may well be soaked up before Christmas, but the reality is that many vendors who have been holding out for years, as they watched prices rise, may have left it too late to get that magic amount that will give them a trade-down home, a pension, and a leg up for the kids.
However, agents specialising in the upper end of the new homes market are bullish. With over 60 units sold at The Grange (Ray Grehan's stylish scheme on the Stillorgan Road) last weekend, Hamilton Osborne King is holding out hopes for a sell-out this weekend at Mount St Anne's in Milltown.
In fact, the agency has quietly sold over 30 units there earlier this week, and the rest of the units go on release today, at slightly higher prices. The sales pitch will be that no more apartments will be built on the site, which has turned out to be one of the most successful on the southside.
Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council is limbering up for a fight over what it describes as a "25-storey skyscraper" proposed for the Tara Towers hotel site on the Merrion Road - only trouble is, it's not in its jurisdiction. The site isn't a hundred miles from the boundary, but it's still in Dublin City Council's territory.
The Cathaoirleach of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council, Fine Gael Cllr Eugene Regan, says the council has a legitimate interest in opposing the development by former Fianna Fail Cllr and developer Bernard McNamara and his partner in this project Gerry O'Reilly. He says the proposal, which is on the boundary with Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, "highlights the need for greater harmonisation of planning decisions between the two local authorities in relation to lands bordering the two council areas".
He called it "unacceptable" that a development "almost twice the height of Liberty Hall should be considered for this residential suburb". Regan's comments are all the more surprising because his own council recently granted planning permission to solicitor Noel Smyth for a 23-storey block at the MJ Flood site in Sandyford.
That decision, taken by the then manager Derek Brady, created quite a fuss as, within a matter of weeks, the same Mr Brady was off to join the staff of the same Noel Smyth. The decision is still on appeal and meanwhile Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council is carrying out a tall buildings study which will set guidelines for heights in the neighbourhood. This development at the Tara Towers, if approved by Dublin City planners, "would pre-empt the findings of this study" said Regan. The cheek of the man!
Mark FitzGerald is always up to something. As many Irish agents are at the ready to be snapped up by international and UK agencies, Sherry FitzGerald is quietly building up its operation in London through its well bred off-shoot Marsh & Parsons. Early this week it announced the €5 million acquisition of Vanstons, a small but prestigious outfit with five branches in the posh SW suburbs from Battersea to Barnes. This will give FitzGerald 12 agencies in central and west London and undoubtedly the network will grow as he tries to hoist the Marsh & Parsons' signage in other desirable neighbourhoods.
