Houses were bought and sold in 2010, but overall it was another difficult year for the property market. Property Editor Orna Mulcahyand Frances O'Rourkereport

AT THE END of another annus horribilis for estate agents, few of the large agency chains have headline sales to report and for most of the smaller agencies, 2010 has simply been about survival.

Buyers are just as elusive and indecisive now as they were a year ago with many determined to wait another year or more before making a decision to buy – although agents are hoping that the cut in stamp duty will bring a rise in transactions.

The drivers in today’s market are old-fashioned ones – births, marriages and deaths, with two more modern ones thrown into the mix – divorce and debt. The residential investment market is dead.

Sales are happening, though it can be a slow and painful process that can take months rather than weeks – an average three months in Dublin (compared to five last year) and 10 months in the rest of the country, says MyHome managing director Angela Keegan.

Michael Grehan, managing director of Sherry FitzGerald, is a bit more bullish: “Our second-hand business will close over 800 properties this year in Dublin,” he says, a figure 40 per cent up on 2009. About 50 houses sold for more than €1 million, of which 15 made more than €2 million. He adds: “The real growth has come in the sub-€1 million bracket and in particular, the sub-€750,000 bracket”.

One of the city’s top agents, Simon Ensor of Sherry FitzGerald, is thought to be close to doing a deal on Derek Quinlan’s house on Shrewsbury Road, a lavish semi that came on the market in October, priced at €7.5 million and is said to be under offer at around €7 million.

Details of the five-bedroom house were taken down from the agency’s website recently, leading to rumours that it had been sold, but according to Ensor, a deal has not yet been done, and he doesn’t expect it to sell before Christmas.

Lower down the price scale, joint agents DNG and Lisney have sold a large Edwardian semi at Park Drive, Ranelagh. The house came on the market at €2.675 million a year ago and a sale has been agreed at more than €1.7 million.

Elsewhere, Lisney has sold a mews house at 8 Trafalgar Lane, Monkstown, Co Dublin, for less than the asking price of €495,000 while a property called Lus Mor on Torquay Road, Foxrock, D18, which had been asking €995,000, has been agreed at closer to €900,000 also through Lisney.

Douglas Newman Good (DNG) CEO Keith Lowe says “2010 was a very trying year” with sales slow and prices falling. DNG concluded the sale of a number of houses including 3 Dartry Road, a big detached D6 six-bed that came on the market in September 2008 for €3.25 million and sold in June this year for €1.5 million.

In Sandycove, Co Dublin, the November sale of three houses – Ardagh and St Joseph’s on Newtownsmith and Maryville on Link Road – ended a saga that began in 2004, when Xtra-Vision’s Richard Murphy paid €3.75 million for the houses on a corner site. In 2005, he was refused permission to demolish them and redevelop.

The houses came back on the market in June this year with a collective price tag of €2 million, through joint agents CB Richard Ellis and Gunne, and sold – to two buyers – for in the region of €1.5 million.

While some houses have taken months and multiple price drops to sell, others are moving quickly, mainly because vendors have become realistic in 2010 about prices. Ronan O’Hara at Savills’ Blackrock office says that Melmore, a house on Brighton Avenue in Monkstown, Co Dublin, which came on the market in September asking €1.295 million, had been sale agreed within three weeks.

Other properties his office got away over the autumn/winter season include a refurbished Victorian house at 5 Burdett Avenue, Sandycove, Co Dublin, which is thought to have made closer to €1.1 million.

The sale of 19 Waltham Terrace in Blackrock, Co Dublin, was wrapped up in November – its asking price was €1.6 million. Earlier, Knockatana at Killiney Heath, Killiney, which had an asking price price of €950,000, was sold. Averagely, they made between 10 per cent and 15 per cent below the asking price says O’Hara.

Houses at the top end of the market have been selling but in stark contrast to high profile auctions of the past, they’ve been selling “off market”. Agents report that a significant number of buyers are expats who’ve made lots of money abroad, are being offered jobs back home in industries such as IT – but couldn’t afford to buy here until house prices fell.

Auctions were few and far between, but were more successful in the country than the city,with land performing better than expected in 2010. In late November, Dowdingstown House and farm, an 1870s period home on 252 acres at Two Mile House, Naas, Co Kildare, sold at a Goffs auction for €3.525 million. There were three bidders for the property; the buyer was a Dublin farmer from about 20 miles away, says the agent.

Perhaps the most interesting land sale of the year also involved a remarkable 18th-century house, Newberry Hall Demesne, on 444 acres near Carbury, Co Kildare. It took Navan estate agent Raymond Potterton just three weeks to sell the vast Palladian-style mansion in need of extensive restoration. It was bought by neighbouring farmer Wesley Carter – for around €7.5 million.

Other country sales included a five-bedroom 18th-century glebe house on five acres, The Glebe, Kilskyre, Co Meath, sold through Colliers Jackson-Stops. The original asking price was €2 million; it made close to €1.2 million. The agency also wrapped up the sale of Allenswood in Lucan – the house on 218 acres had come on the market in 2009 and was expected make up to €10 million. The house on 35 acres sold this autumnn for around €2 million

Wicklow agent Gordon Lennox says he had a reasonably busy year and that his vendors are on message about current values. His sales included an early-20th-century house, Ardmore, on Church Road, Greystones. Originally listed for €2 million in 2007 it “made the million” he says when it sold this year.

The year 2010 was tough, but agents hope the stamp duty cut may get the 2011 market moving. Simon Ensor of the national council of the Irish auctioneers Valuers Association (IAVI) said “the reduction in stamp duty will afford people greater opportunities to trade up and down in the market and will offer people greater mobility”. He also welcomed the Government’s commitment to a national property price register as “crucial to ensure transparency in the market”.