Sinking prices on the links from Kilkenny to Clare

TWO houses have come up for sale in one of Ireland’s oldest golf estates, Mount Juliet, in Thomastown, Co Kilkenny. As with homes in golf estates around the country, prices have dropped by around 50 per cent there since the height of the property boom.

Number 12 Walton’s Grove, a 217sq m (2,350sq ft) three-bed split level house on the 12th fairway, is for sale for €500,000 through Savills.

Meanwhile 3 South Paddocks, a three-bedroom townhouse overlooking the golf course and paddocks, is for sale through Colliers for €360,000. The same property would have sold for around £250,000 in the 1990s and for €700,000 in 2006.

Colliers is also handling the sale of 6 South Paddocks, which went for sale by receiver in September for €360,000.

Prices in most of the country’s top estates have tumbled in the past five years. At US-owned Doonbeg in Co Clare, prices have fallen by at least 40-45 per cent since 2007 – although prices are still fairly steep.

Currently there are apartments and cottages for sale there ranging from €675,000 for a one-bed in the main lodge to €995,000 for a four-bedroom cottage on the golf course. And at the K Club in Straffan, Co Kildare, 947 Ladycastle – on the Smurfit course – a three-bed home has been on market for six months at an asking price of €400,000 through agent Nolan Brophy.

Around 2006, the year of the Ryder Cup at the K club, prices at the K Club ranged from €980,000 for small two-bed apartments up to to €3 million for four-bedroom houses. Prices of the properties at Killeen Castle in Co Meath got a bit of a boost when the Solheim Cup was held there this year. Three and four-bed houses ovderlooking the fairway were relaunched in September at prices from €315,000 for three-beds and €430,000 for four-beds. But they were well down on 2008, the year they were launched, when prices ranged from €1.2m for three-beds.