SATURDAY’S TURNOUT for a house viewing in Ranelagh has put a bounce in the step of Christopher Bradley of Sherry Fitz’s local office.

With over 150 viewings on the day and another 50 this week, for a four-bedroom, detached 1970s house on the main Sandford Road, Bradley struggles to explain the interest.

“Well, it’s Ranelagh for a start, where prices are half what they were two years ago – many viewers had given up on the idea of living in Ranelagh, but at €650,000 many felt this was their best chance of getting the kind of property that was out of their reach during the boom.

“Nobody knows if the bottom of the market has been reached in price terms, but Saturday’s interest certainly rings a bell in some peoples’ mind. If they don’t move on this one, they feel they have missed the chance to live in Ranelagh, which has a kind of cachet about it at the moment.”

Location apart, Bradley says interest rates are crucial to revived interest.

Post-Nama, some banks are tentatively re-opening their loan books, offering variable rates of 2.5 to 2.8 per cent on loan-to-value rates of 50 to 80 per cent of the price – a borrowing rate that is probably the lowest in the memory of most people.

Given, too, that some canny purchasers have been hoarding their dosh for the right combination of property, price and location and one can see why the Ranelagh Swallow, as we might call it, may herald some kind of selling upturn, in traditionally a poor selling season.

But as Bradley says: “Our biggest problem at the moment in this area is lack of supply. The buyers are back, but sellers are waiting for the uplift.”