AROUND THE BLOCK:While residential property prices in the Republic increased for the second consecutive month in August, sparking hopes that the market may be stabilising, we're wondering if the owner of a restored country house on 17 acres by the shores of Lough Derg is taking the news too literally.

In December the businessman from the US who paid well over the minimum reserve of €1.5 million after a bidding war for St David’s, in Urra, Nenagh, Co Tipperary – one of the first big sales of 2012 – is now putting it back on the market, 10 months later, at €2.2 million. That’s an increase of nearly 46 per cent in asking price (although we don’t know the exact figure he paid for the house).

He’s apparently selling up because he doesn’t have the time to visit it as often as he’d like. It’s no surprise there was a bidding war for the property last time around. The 495.5sq m (5,341sq ft) property is lavish, with many period details as well as its own dock, boat house and a landing pad for helicopters .

Originally built by a family called Holmes as a fishing lodge in the late 1790s, it stayed in the family until the 1970s. It was renovated in the past 10 years by the previous owner.