Hollywood House, Glenealy, Co. Wicklow
€3,500,000 - 7 Bed Country House on 100 acres For Sale
myhome.ie/residential/brochure/hollywood-house-glenealy-co-wicklow/3049330
Some of you will have driven past its front gate / gate lodge driving through Glenealy
Irish Times bubble article pointing out what a great deal it is a 4m vs. 2008 asking of 9m (which it never had a hope at)
irishtimes.com/life-and-style/homes-and-property/new-to-market/hollywood-house-the-4-million-sequel-1.1523547
Went through a few sales processes on its trip from asking 9m to now asking 3.5m (see Colliers / Knight Frank brochure)
itm.ie/assetlibrary/files/itm2013/property/hollywood_house_estate.pdf
Hollywood House, Glenealy is also listed in the National Inventory of Architectural Heritage
buildingsofireland.ie/niah/search.jsp?type=record&county=WI®no=16403004
Savills have been marketing Hollywood House in Glenealy on their global network for a while now but no joy (even appeared in Savills plush magazine of global high-end country houses for rich Chinese, Russian, Arab etc. buyers).
There are loads of these Country Estates rotting on (and off) myhome.ie with “aspirational” asking prices (see the smaller agent, Colliers, collection in 2012).
colliers.com/-/media/Files/EMEA/ireland/brochure/brochure-autumn-catalogue-2011
The Irish want little to do with them as they are in the middle of nowhere (despite the agent brochure’s usually claiming that they are within 1 hours drive of Dublin Airport - yes if it is at 3am and you are doing +150 mph continuously).
The crazy Irish helicopter-flying developer with 5 homes all over the world is gone and unlikely to return in any sale in our lifetimes (Irish banks will stick with the global institutions who actually know about property, as opposed to local individuals claiming they do.)
The target market is the Irish Independent’s Property Spin Doctor, Mark Keenan’s, “moneybags foreign investor” - or translated, someone who doesn’t really care if its 3m or 5m, and someone who knows nothing about the area (or Irish real estate).
This is why any sale to a “moneybags foreign investor” is trumpeted in the Irish Independent ‘bubble media’ property section.
independent.ie/life/home-garden/homes/wealthy-us-buyers-snap-up-irelands-stately-homes-29674331.html
The problem these Irish Country Estates are having is that outside of the truly amazing ones (Humewood), or the +90% discounted ones (i.e. Kinsealy), the “moneybags foreign investor” is not that interested in them. In fact, not since the early 1990s, have we really seen this type of buyer in Ireland in any material way. They have discovered that Ireland rains, where as the Southern Mediterranean (and its up and coming islands like Ibiza) do not. They have also discovered that where as Savills’ own plush magazine lists loads of English Grade II listed Country Estates for £3-4m right beside beautiful 500 year-old Tudor villages, many of Ireland’s equivalents are beside poor villages (often with more council estates than the “ye old tea shoppee”).
Glenealy is such a village, plenty of council estates, and certainly nothing that would entice a “moneybags foreign investor”.
I don’t any Irish buyer who is not born in Glenealy, would have a genuine yearning to retire there (unlike Kenmare, Adare etc.)?
If many of these estates where put up for auction (Bank of Scotland style), we would see dramatic falls in prices.
I doubt that Hollywood would break 3m and even much above 2m (and only if a special buyer appeared).
PS - I see there is another small thread on Hollywood House on the PIN, can we merge with this (and place it at the start ?)
thepropertypin.com/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=41554
It might be a local farmer, one of the few ones who operate on an industrial scale, who buys these sorts of properties in the end (or certainly properties like this that are situated further away from Dublin). If the 100 acres of land is anyway decent it is probably valued at €1m alone in the current market for agricultural land. Consider that as putting a bottom on the price. Some of these farmers would be as likely to let the house fall down, or use it to store bales, as do anything with it.
+1
I have tried over the years to understand Irish agricultural land prices with no joy.
It is like real estate in Singapore / Hong Kong - a ‘dark matter’ of surplus capital that uses Irish agricultural land as a home.
Not sure the prices have anything to do with the laws of economics (bit like D4 and D6 houses !)
You are right, economically the price/acre makes zero commercial sense. But the reason is clear enough.
Irish farmers love to put any excess capital they have into more land, it’s an investment that they understand and buying more land gives them raised social status with their peers. And they also sincerely take the view that, although such an investment won’t make money for them in their lifetime, that it will be there for their descendants. So the mentality is that any spare capital is set aside for more farm buildings or other farm improvements or to buy more land, it is not meant for anything else, it’s a religion stronger in this country than the hold of Christianity I believe!
And bizarrely it has proved a good investment to date, agricultural land prices seem to have gone only in one direction over the years, with some quite minor hiccups. The banks seem happy enough to lend out money to farmers at whatever price per acre, once the borrowers have existing land collateral, as the overwhelming history has been that all loans will be repaid over time. Farmers will literally prefer to starve rather than lose “their” land back to the bank.
Well said !
I think our farmer friendly Government give generous inheritance tax breaks too
(It is not just D.O’B who gets all the breaks)
What happens when an Irish Country Mansion actually goes to auction …
Bellamont Forest, Cootehill, Cavan sells for 2m
1,000 ACRES
+10,000 sq ft.
Brochure 4pm.ie/upload/PDF/584529/BallamontForest2015.pdf
At least Ganley had the sense not to set a crazy asking price - and risk nobody turning up.
1.3m was a giveaway, hoever 2m was a very fair deal.
Wow! This house in Cavan is worth a thread on its own.
I had read years ago that this was one of the finest houses in Ireland and that the plastered celiings were some of the finest examples of Italian craftmanship to be found anywhere. You can see more of the interior of house by looking at Google images.
At €2m this has to be a steal even if it takes over €1m to complete the project! The land alone is worth much more than that (even half of it if sold off as farmland).
This was an executors sale at a bad time in the market but I can guarantee you that the entirety of this fine house, once completed, and lands will be worth north of €10m in the next upturn.
@observer35 agree on your points on Hollywood House. What do you make of value of Tigroney House, Avoca?
myhome.ie/residential/brochu … ow/3243739
Needs a heap of work according to the Indo:
The value here is the land - to value this, you must be able to value it land.
Check local land prices in the area and work off that.
You often get useable land (streams / marsh etc.), so you need to make your own allowance.
The house is probably worth very little - the fact that they have little no pictures shows what bs Mark Keenan’s reference to the 300k to complete the job is (Mark Keenan is the most extreme of the Independent Property Team spin doctors - he sometimes quotes ancient old bids that were never comsummated to try and support a price basis).
Most such country houses are really really really (I could go on) old. Forget Dublin period houses, we are talking another earlier generation of build type. That means they cost as much to restore to modern family living as a new higher end build from scratch (and some times even more).
There are some that are truely beautiful and people pay up for them etc.
This one is nice but not inspirational - I would start at just the land price and leave it at that.
The fact that is it likely not in great nick means that it will not attract the holy grail of country estate agents - the foreign buyer. Every country estate agent has had the experience of getting several million more out of the blue for a property from somebody off a plane. That is your only risk but always better to walk away (the foreign buyers don’t tend to stay long and sell after a few years anyway). But when in poor nick, it will come down to the land.
Bid low, be patient, keep checking your land prices…
Your comments could equally have applied to Newhall House in Ennis - asking 5m on 360 acres in 2013 when Mark Keenan noted “Agents Sherry FitzGerald Country Homes expect Newhall to attract a wealthy overseas buyer with odds that most of the interest will be coming from the USA.”
independent.ie/life/home-gar … 14363.html
Fast forward two years, and in the absence of a wealthy foreign buyer, the house on 60 acres is now asking €550k, but with the enticing possibility of further opportunities!