Celebrity status fails to boost sale appeal of Cork properties

If anyone was wondering whether the whiff of celebrity might add a few hundred thousand to the value of a house, think again. At least if you're looking in the Cork area anyway. Two prominent houses have registered substantial price drops in recent weeks, despite their former owners' stellar status.

Take screen legend Maureen O’Hara’s home outside Glengarriff which she put on the market last October asking €2.3 million.

The idyllically appointed Lugdine Park was O’Hara’s home for many years, but this fact has done little to attract a buyer and Sherry FitzGerald dropped the price of the five-bed property again this week to €1.85 million. That’s a fall of 20 per cent in six months.

Meanwhile Shorecliffe House, the west Cork holiday home of Sir Anthony O’Reilly, has struggled to sell since it went on the market last May for around €2.5 million through Charlie McCarthy in Skibbereen.

Now, presumably, the bank is hoping a change of agent to Sherry FitzGerald, and a price drop to €1.75 million will attract buyers to the 3,500 sq ft property on six acres, with mews, outdoor swimming pool, tennis court and frontage to the sea. That's a 30 per cent drop in asking price, and a very long way short of the €4.3million the Glandore Georgian was valued at in 2009 when used by O'Reilly as a guarantee for loans with AIB.