With the opening of the domestic holiday season fast approaching, 30 holiday homes go on the market today at the Galway Bay Golf and Country Club. Two-bedroom villas will cost from £120,000, while a small number of large detached houses will be available from £220,000.
The houses are likely to be in keen demand because they will be the last to be offered for sale at the prestigious country club, according to Gerry Whelehan, sales manager with the developers, Ballymore.
When this final phase is completed later in the year, the club will have 145 homes in all, most of them owned by professionals and business people. Some of them are used for corporate entertainment but the majority are rented out when not occupied by the owners.
There is a year-round demand for the homes, unlike most of the holiday houses completed at seaside resorts over the past three years.
Two-bedroom houses at the country club rent for between £600 and £800 per week in the high season. They are also much sought after in the winter months because they are within an easy eight-mile drive of Galway city.
The country club's appeal has been greatly strengthened by the opening of a 92-bedroom hotel alongside the three-storey clubhouse.
The extra facilities will be particularly useful next August when the club stages a European PGA tour event, which will carry Ryder Cup points. With the team due to be selected a week later, many of the top European players are expected to take part in the Galway event - the Ballymore Properties West of Ireland Golf Classic - which will have a prize fund of £275,000.
The 18-hole golf course, designed by Christy O'Connor jnr, forms the centre-piece of a rugged peninsula on the eastern side of Galway Bay. Although it is surrounded on three sides by the Atlantic, it is a classic parkland course with water hazards and strategic bunkering throughout the gentle rolling terrain.
The launch of the final phase of the Renville holiday village housing comes almost six years after the opening of the club by Ballymore and the businessman Herb Stanley.
The main demand at this stage is for two-bedroom villas, which either overlook the golf course or back on to heavy woodlands.
Ballymore has catered for this market by remodelling its largest country homes and dividing them in two to create the golf villas.
The two-storey homes have 860 sq ft of floor space, separate entrances and gardens. A showhouse opening today will undoubtedly impress viewers because of the high specification finish for which Ballymore is noted. There is a combined livingroom/diningroom with double glass doors leading out on to a patio and garden, which will come in handy on long summer evenings. The kitchen is designed to make cooking easy and trouble-free and there is an overhead roof light to keep the place bright.
One of the bedrooms, with an en suite shower room, is on the ground floor while the other occupies the entire top floor, along with a tastefully decorated bathroom.
At the top end of the market, Ballymore is also taking bookings for a handful of large detached three-bedroom country homes with 1,720 sq ft and a price tag from £220,000. It has a huge livingroom and diningroom, ideal for entertaining, with a timber ceiling, wooden floor and large bay windows overlooking the golf course and the bay. There is a superb kitchen and utility room. Both of the two upstairs bedrooms are en suite and the main bedroom has a bay window opening out on to a verandah.
