5 Brennan's Parade, Bray

The Irish Property Bubble (2006) Sell, Buy or Rent?
1

(Mods, I’m not sure if this is the best place for this thread, feel free to move it.)

On my daily viewing of Daft.ie, I came across a property on Brennan’s Parade, a terrace backing onto the railway line in Bray, the first 4-bed in the town advertised at under €200k; it’s on at €195k. daft.ie/1649574
So I decided to look at it’s history - “I’ve been viewing this property for years”, I said to myself, “I wonder how many drops it’s gone through now”.
Off to collapso with me, I put the house in, and lo and behold, there are NO price drops.

Further searching gives me 3 Brennans Parade and 7 Brennans Parade, and doing a full search I find nos 2 and 4 Brennan’s Parade (with the apostrophe) have also been up for sale over the last 4 years.

So since 2008, nos 2, 3, 4, 5 and 7 have all been up for sale.

Does anyone know what’s going on here? Has someone being quietly offloading a series of (rental) properties on the sly? Who could it be?

I’m not interested in these properties (as I said, they back onto the railway line), but I am curious as to what is going on here!

2

960 sq ft with 4 bedrooms is more than problematic. The location is horrific too - right in the line of fire from the drinking factories on the seafront (haven’t they added gates to the Parade to stop through pedestrian traffic?). Add 4 years of folk chasing a falling market and orderly queue of unsold stock can be expected to form.

3

Well, I think the location of Brennan’s Parade is far from ‘horrific’!
Where else can you get a character house, 5 mins from the beach, next to the mountains and half an hour from the capital for less than 200k? Great little cafes, and 10 min walk to the main street. What more or less amounts to a private road too. And as for the railway line - well, no one’s going to climb into your house via the rear yard, are they?

4

daft.ie/searchsale.daft?id=619692

11 Brennans Terrace Strand Road, Bray, Co. Wicklow

485k for 2,583 sq ft, 5 bed
187 €/sq ft

5

Good luck with the sale.

6

Why is it when anyone says anything positive pinsters have to accuse them of being a vendor. Allow people to have differing opinions. I am buying elsewhere but agree there is a lot to be said for this area

7

The houses are probably the closest to sea level in Bray. I’d check if you can get flood insurance.

Parking also looks very tight.

8

Probably for the same reason you got stick for your first post, it’s an over positive first post that’s mentions
now downside and seems very biased.

9

Although not desiring to rain on anyone’s Parade, on the basis of an investigation into a house not a stone’s throw away…

*I toyed with the idea of a purchase after totting up the costs of bringing Warburton up to liveable condition and finding that it might in fact be a goer.

As part of the due diligence process I took to checking out the area - my main concern being access to on street parking close by given there’s no potential to open up off-street parking. Taking the advice of a taxi man plying his trade on the sea front, I staked out the place last Hallo’ween night.

Sure enough, all was quite until about 2.30am when the sea front pubs began spewing out their contents. It wasn’t long before the spewed out contents where themselves spewing out the contents of their nights consumption.

What a scene!

Groups of 4-6 people turning off the sea front and making their way up the terrace. Laughing, shouting, staggering, drunken jockeybacks, throwing glasses and empty bottles on the ground. One guy stood on the corner of the terrace and Meath Road and pee’d like a horse for about 2 minutes against a garden wall. Fights and defecating too must be regular enough occurances.

It struck me that the 6 or so parking spaces in front of Warburton - which were typically filled anytime I had previously checked - were all unoccupied. Not a car on the road. Clearly the residents have had bad experiences and have learned to take pre-emptive action by moving their cars out on drink-nights.

This scene of bedlam split up at the top of the terrace and headed off the three routes available to it - 75% of it heading down Meath Rd towards the town. I had the vision of chaos dividing and sub-dividing it’s way through the whole residential area behind the sea-front and wondered at how such a thing is not only permitted, but licenced.

Shame that…because not in a million years.
*

thepropertypin.com/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=41263

…I concluded ‘horrific’.

As with morality however, that which constitutes ‘horrific’ is a matter for individual decision. If nightly bedlam (and a take-away at the end of the Parade forming a focal point for it) isn’t a matter of concern for you then horrific the location most certainly may not be. But to the average punter considering a family home…

10

This would be a lovely area in which to live, true enough - but 2 things are absolutely necessary for any quality of living here - off street parking and good sound proofing. This should protect you from the bedlam at weekends (with 2 nightclubs nearby) and also the sound pollution from the trains behind.

Also stormy winds and possible flooding! Apart from that it really isn’t a bad place to live at all - fabulous views and amenities. So doesn’t that cover the 3 Ls? :wink:

PS I must admit I have never heard anyone try and pass off a train track at the end of your garden as a good thing. You’d have to wonder what type of person would say such a thing. I mean seriously! Have your ever seen the movie Se7en? Troll much?