With much of Dublin’s Georgian house market still around 50 per cent below peak values during the property boom, an increasing number of these properties are changing hands and being bought by investors anxious to avail of the seven-year capital gains tax exemption.
Some of the buyers are also looking at the feasibility of converting the houses back into residential use. The pick up in sales over the past two years has encouraged two more owners to offer properties for sale at 13 Upper Fitzwilliam Street and 43 Fitzwilliam Square.
Nicholas Corson of Finnegan Menton is quoting €1.5 million for the property in Upper Fitzwilliam Street which also has a mews at the rear on Pembroke Lane. It has a net internal area of 353sq m (3,800sq ft) and has been upgraded to include a new heating system and an alarm and data cabling throughout.
Though the house is being offered for sale with vacant possession, existing tenants are prepared to enter into a leasing arrangement with the purchaser’s approval.
The coach house at the rear is let on a 35-year lease at a rent of €10,000 per annum. This 700sq ft building is used as workshop and stores and retains all its original features including flagstone flooring and original hayloft. The building was used up to the mid-1950s for the stabling of horses.
As the house does not come with any car parking facilities it is thought likely that in the long term the next owner will want to provide some spaces onsite as well as residential accommodation.
Nick Coveney of Colliers International is handling the sale of the Fitzwilliam Square house which is located on the west side of the square and is available at €1.65 million.
The basement, ground, first and second floors are all let on short term leases and generating a rental income of €78,000.
A large two-bedroom apartment at third-floor level is expected to rent at €22,000 per annum to bring the overall rent roll up to €100,000.
Coveney says the house is “one of the better properties to come to the market in the last year or so”.
It has about 10 car parking spaces at the rear and potential to develop a mews building off Laverty Court.
Most of the mews sites along this lane have been developed for residential use.
