I know the general area and like it but I don’t know this estate. It seems small but a mix of detached and semi detached. The location to village etc is good for us.
What is the view from those in the know. Love to hear thoughts on the good bad and ugly points about this house/estate and WIW? I believe there is currently a bid of €550k on the table so it may rise.
We are looking for a detached in the Blackrock vicinity (or around blackrock side of Foxrock) so wondering if this is a good proposition in the current market where there seems to be a real shortage of detahced houses around the €500k mark…
This is a nice estate, especially if you have kids. You obviously know the area you’re looking for so will know that it’s a bit far up Carysfort Avenue for some people’s tastes, and I suspect that’s why it’s been on the market so long. €550k is €333 per square foot, which does seem to be what you’ll pay for a good 4-bed detached in walk-in condition away from any busy roads.
You may find this thread informative: viewtopic.php?f=10&t=37626&
No. 21 Carysfort Woods was a much smaller house in the same estate that sold last year. It was a semi-detached as far as I recall, 119 sq m/ 1280 sq ft, with a site and design that allowed no scope for any future extension or attic conversion. It came to market in April at €550k, but took a drop in asking to €455k in July to get it sold, which then happened within four weeks. Probably went for high-300s to low-400s, so that would have been about €300-320 per square foot. This is in keeping with evidence I’m seeing that prices in the good parts of Blackrock (among other areas) are holding steady or going up, given that no.13 seems likely to achieve at least €333k and may go higher as you said.
By the way, the first two pages of the linked thread are the most informative. But interestingly, after the house sold, there were quite a few posts saying the price was ridiculous and implying that the buyer would be in negative equity in no time. When someone (Cheeky Offer) said the buyer wouldn’t lose their shirt, others scoffed. Look at where we are today with number 21 in the same estate: it’s hardly shirt-loss territory, in spite of late 2011/early 2012 delivering huge monthly average price-drops in Dublin. So I come back one of my general themes on the pin: know your locality and what’s going on in it, it’s far more relevant than average price trends that include a lot of areas of no interest to you. This case study suggests locations decent estates like Blackrock have not really been dropping much for the past year. Other local price-focused analysis is possible using DaftDrop.ie to see what’s happening locally, and it supports my contention.
Well this confirms the OP’s statement that there is a shortage of detached houses for 500k in the Blackrock/Foxrock area! Let’s take a look at each.
#1: Belmont Terrace: Seriously compromised by location on dual carriageway (see comments re same issue in thread on that house) and by the fact that period houses are poorly insulated and have extremely high operating and maintenance costs. May even require modernisation/renovation - insulation and/or double glazing, for example. So not in the running as a comparison for determining whether the cost of 21 Carysfort Woods is overpriced or not.
#2: Bellevue Lodge: Great condition but no garden and so not suitable for the vast majority of families or indeed pinsters in general, who are fussy about that sort of thing. Also check out the thread on it, mention of residents in nearby development having pedestrian access to their houses via the driveway of the house. Also mention of title complications due to easement issues. If you could live with all of those factors it might look like relative value - but that’s living with a lot of problems that don’t come with 21 Carysfort Woods. Because of those issues it’s hard to say it’s either better or worse value than 21 Carysfort Woods: it’s a different proposition.
#3: Irrelevant because not in the Blackrock/Foxrock area which was specified by the OP. Numerous other issues too: very busy road; not a detached house, which was also specified by the OP.
#4: Irrelevant because not in the Blackrock/Foxrock area. Numerous other issues too: build not finished, and to most people, a much less attractive location.
I should add that I don’t see 21 Carysfort Woods as being a particularly cheap house. I’ve been quite dismayed at the strength of prices in the area over the past year. If you had told me three years ago that in 2012 I’d still have to pay close to €350 per square foot for a detached house in an estate on the outskirts of Blackrock, I’d have thought it was too steep. In a way I still do, but I’m not seeing this kind of price level in the area going down a whole lot from here based on what else is on the market in the area or on the comparison I made with the sale in the estate last year.
Don’t mean to burst the Blackrock micro-climate theory, but last july/august a family member went to see a 3 bed end terrace 900sq ft house in merrion park, it had an offer of 410K on it. I see a similar one went recently sale agreed, it was asking €370k., if it went for asking thats about a 10% drop in the last 10 months. might have gone a lot higher tho.
Great example of good, localised information. Doesn’t necessarily burst the theory at all, just contributes another useful insight: it suggests to me something I was probably aware of but didn’t articulate (perhaps not even to myself): the strong pocket of demand in that area is for family houses in family-friendly locations. A few pinsters I’ve been in touch with privately over the past year who would give an arm or leg to live in the Blackrock area are very sniffy about the likes of Merrion Park, or the smaller 3-beds in St Augustine’s and the likes, precisely because they don’t do it for families.
Take a look at this and you’ll see what I was getting at: daftdrop.com/…=Blackrock…min=3…max=4…Detached
The **average **percentage drop in asking prices of 3-4 bed detached houses in Blackrock over the past year was… a measly 5%.
(The poster was interested in detached houses, hence that’s what I searched for. Repeat with semi-detached included and you won’t see much difference.)
Definitely, think the ‘‘get on the ladder’’ is dead, people now want long term family homes. not surprising when so many of us are taking on long term mortgages that won’t get pissed away with inflation like our parents ones did.
Which is really not at all a bad thing, I think (this shift towards the long term family home). People got forced away from it once things started going crazy, from 1997 onwards. Some were forced into very unfortunate compromises. For all the frustration we’ve all expressed on the pin at one time or another, I believe the options available to most househunters in their 30s or even 40s - probably the typical family home time for most - are now a heck of a lot better than they have been for close to 15 years.
It shouldn’t be at all surprising that a lot of people are now getting back into the market (going by the rate of viewings, bidding, and sales agreed quickly). Some of us had to wait quite a bit beyond the ideal age. But it would be nice if more people buying houses over the coming years were buying them for life, or at least a long stretch of it, rather than for a 3-5 year step on the ladder, or worse still, an investment to be “flipped” in order to make that step possible.
Thanks for the replies guys! Interesting comments re price. Anyone have any other comments on the actual estate. The thread on number 21 went into things like distance from village etc but not much on the actual estate…
I know that Carysfort Park and the Cloisters further down the hill have a great environment - lots of the parents walk their kids down the road to school and walk back home together, all very neighbourly and civilised. Most weekends there are organised sports activities for kids down in the local park on Carysfort Avenue, with lots of parents hanging out and chatting. Playground there also seems to be a spot where parents and kids alike socialise. I don’t know about Carysfort Woods, could be similar or quite different. It would be worth your while dropping around there some morning or early afternoon and getting to chat to some of the moms before/after the school run, or simply observing to see if there is a bit of a community thing going on.
We have been looking at houses in this area, the one mentioned below included (No. 13). As we are not from the area we were wondering if anyone knows which are the good/bad/indifferent schools in the area (national schools). There is a list here but it doesn’t rate them as schools are not all rated in Ireland.
I live in this estate. It’s a mix of four/five bedroom detached houses, four bed semis and three bed semis. It is mostly families with the full spectrum of age groups right from very young families up to college going kids who have lived in the estate since it was built in the mid 90s. A few of the properties are also rented. The area is very safe and a quick drive around any evening or weekend - particularly at the moment with the summer weather - would show you the place is thronged with children playing. There’s a large green directly in front of the house which is used by the families in the area. To the side of the green is the heated swimming pool owned by St Augustine’s special needs school which is just down the road. There’s public adult swims in the evenings, classes for kids and waterbabies on Saturday afternoons.
For bus routes into town, you’re a 10-15 minute walk up through Carysfort Downs into Farmleigh to access the 46A, 145, 75, 84x on the N11. These are as frequent as every 5-10 mins. Between 7:15 - 8:45am weekday mornings, you have the option of walking across the green down on to Stillorgan Park Avene where there are 7Bs and 46Es going into town.
Blackrock Village is a 20 minute walk down Carysfort Ave or a 5 minute drive. Stillorgan SC and the supermarkets in Blackrock are your nearest amenities. The Wishing Well pub on Newtown Park is a 5 minute walk but the superior Galloping Green is a 15 minute walk worth taking. Obviously there’s all the pubs in Blackrock and Stillorgan too.
Carysfort Park, Blackrock Park and Booterstown Park are all exceptional amenities for kids.
The local schools are Carysfort NS, Guardian Angels NS on Newtownpark Avenue, Holly Park on the other side of Newtownpark Avenue, the private Willow Park (feeder for Blackrock College), the Educate Together in Monkstown (a bit of a trek), Colaiste Lorcain (feeder for Colaiste Eoin & Iosagan - murder to get into this school and also a bit of a trek) and a lot of the girls in the estate seem to go to Mount Anville which I believe is also private.
The house in question is a fine sized four bedroom well laid out. We live in a similar home and plan on being there for the rest of our lives. We’ve lived there for over two years now and we’re really very happy there. There’s nothing that isn’t within a 5 minute drive or a 30 minute walk. We regularly walk down to the village and then head up the coast road to Seapoint or Dun Laoghaire on a sunny day.
The school enrolment policy is that you have to be in the parish of St. John the Baptist Church in Blackrock village which the estate is in. Have double and triple checked that. Even got the child baptised there for double insurance The things we have to do…
The things we have to do…
