Sunday Times: Cork's Elysian fails to woo homebuyers

mambo · January 18, 2009, 10:03am

Cork’s €150m luxury apartment block fails to woo homebuyers
The €150m Elysian housing complex has only managed to sell one of its penthouse flats, and many of its 211 units are empty

With water cascades, a Japanese garden, triplex penthouses and a chance to live in Ireland’s tallest residential building, a €2m Leeside penthouse in Cork city’s Elysian apartment complex was billed as the ultimate in Celtic tiger living. But four months after units in the 17-storey development officially came on the market, just one person has taken up residence in the €150m complex.

The Elysian was backed by a considerable marketing campaign. It featured in TV3’s The Apprentice, in which contestants competed to design a television commercial for Michael O’Flynn, the complex’s developer. However, even that publicity did not help to shift units.

Just one purchase of the Elysian’s 39 penthouses, which range in price from €1.4m to €2m, has been completed and deposits have been placed on only three others. Sherry Fitz-Gerald, the residential estate agency for the O’Flynn Construction development, has received a total of 25 deposits for Elysian’s 211 apartments.

Trish Stokes, the building’s selling agent at Sherry FitzGerald, refused to disclose the total number of sales, but said she didn’t expect buyers to start moving in until March because PJ Hegarty, the building contractor, hasn’t yet completed construction.

The Elysian was officially opened in September with a glitzy launch party attended by Micheal Martin, the min-ister for foreign affairs, and Batt O’Keeffe, the education minister.

The Elysian extends six metres higher than Cork County Hall and 13m higher than Liberty Hall in Dublin, but would-be residents — ideally those immune to the recession — pay through the nose for the privilege.

Prices start at €375,000 for one-bedroom apartments, but Sherry FitzGerald is adamant prices won’t come down any time soon. “We launched it in the midst of global turmoil, but with this level of fit-out and finish, and basement parking in a city where parking is a nightmare, the apartments still represent great value for money,” Stokes said.

Other property agents predict that O’Flynn, who paid €15m for the site, will have to drop prices in the Elysian substantially in order to shift more units.

“Everyone is looking for the best product for the least amount of money,” said Catherine McAuliffe, a director at Savills, the broker, in Cork. “The number of buyers out there willing to spend €2m on a penthouse are few and far between, and those that do can’t sell their own house to buy one.”

timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/w … 537741.ece

Mikey · January 18, 2009, 10:30am

39 penthousess? How can there be 39 penthouses out of a total of 211 apartments? I always thought that penthouses were the exclusive apartments on the top floor which would usualy number 3 or 4, depending on the size of the block. The exclusivity is not there if there are 39 of them so they might as well just call all 211 apartments “penthouses”.

bodyofevidence · January 18, 2009, 10:32am

HouseBuyer · January 18, 2009, 11:14am

Those 1 bedroom apartments for €375,000 aren’t even in the main “tower” itself.

mambo · January 18, 2009, 11:16am

There would only be a couple of penthouses in the tower I guess, but the rest of the complex is more spread out with lots of 5th floor “penthouses” by the looks of things - see theelysian.ie/

Albarino · January 18, 2009, 12:16pm

Difficulty in selling 200+ flats priced from €375K to €2m in a small provincial city in a small country on the periphary of europe?

Who’d a thunk it?

mr_anderson · January 18, 2009, 12:22pm

Service Charge anyone ?

bodyofevidence · January 18, 2009, 12:25pm

sieze it, and theres corks homeless/social housing problem sorted. After all, by weekend next all the banks will be state owned!

pete · January 18, 2009, 12:40pm

Usual service charges are around ~€1200 for 1 beds to €2800 or so for two beds (e.g., Clarion Quay, IFSC). Take an average of say €2k/month between the larger apartments and smallers ones, it brings a yearly maintenance fee of just over €5 million. With 1 occupied, and 25 with deposits, are those people going to cough the missing ~ €4.5 million?

opus · January 18, 2009, 1:01pm

On the tyre-kicking tours last year, the EA said that service charges would be either €2 or €3 per sq ft per year. Guess he thought that people wouldn’t even notice a possible 50% difference in their charges. Means the smallest flat is either ~€1300 or ~€2k per year. The two beds in the tower either come to €2230 or €3350.

Bigby · January 18, 2009, 7:35pm

Funny he should mention about the finish: viewtopic.php?f=4&t=12580&p=120572&hilit=finish#p120572
The level of denial here is awe-inspiring. How can SF not see that their choice is between cutting prices and take a smaller hit now or waiting and taking an even worse hit later.

banjobater · January 18, 2009, 10:01pm

I doubt SF have much say in the matter.

Bigby · January 18, 2009, 10:38pm

You’re quite right of course - it would be the vendor calling the shots. Same concept applies though. And if SF are any good they should be telling the vendor to flog them now for whatever money they can get.