Duncan Fox is a buyer’s agent – he acts on behalf of those trying to buy, rather than sell, property. As the owner of 69 Dartmouth Terrace, a smartly presented two-bedroom, two-bathroom terraced mews house, secreted off Northbrook Road on a street connecting it to Dartmouth Road, he knows that to maximise a home’s potential, it is all about presenting it in the best possible light.
He bought the property at the bottom of the market, paying €410,000 for it in May 2013, according to the property price register. He has since upgraded it, adding new bathrooms and a swish, curved kitchen, as well as doing the garden and refreshing the interior.
It was the location that drew him to it. Within a few minutes’ walk of Ranelagh village and its Luas stop, and also equidistant to the Charlemont Luas stop, the home is just a 15-minute walk to St Stephen’s Green.
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"The house looked very different two weeks ago, before we started decluttering," he says, estimating that he moved about 20 large Ikea storage boxes out to his parents' place, where he is currently building a new home in the grounds of the family home.
He had already repainted the property, inside and out, before the first lockdown in anticipation of putting it onto the market.
Now in walk-in condition, the C2 Ber home, at 87sq m (936sq ft), excluding the garage, is asking €595,000 through agents Sherry FitzGerald.
“Asking prices now are very strategic with huge competitive bidding,” he explains. “An asking price is devised by the agent and the seller. A home that has a market value of €500,000 might go on the market asking €450,000 with one agent in the hope that it will attract bidding, while another agent might put it on at €550,000 because there is not a lot of stock on the market.”
Buyers’ appetites for renovation projects have also shifted, in part due to the rising costs of additional works. “First-time buyers now want turnkey, or places that may just need new kitchens and bathrooms,” he says. “Homes that are ready to go are much simpler to sell and to buy.”
Layout
The house opens from the street into a hall where there is a windowed guest bathroom and a separate laundry cupboard under the stairs. To the left is the door to the garage, a further 12.5sq m (134sq ft) of space giving off-street parking for one small to medium-sized car.
While parking is at a premium – permit parking is limited to Dartmouth Terrace and on Northbrook Road – this space would probably be better utilised as living space and could, subject to planning, become a separate kitchen, giving the next owner two separate rooms downstairs.
As it is there is a light-filled and open-plan eat-in kitchen cum livingroom to the rear. It opens out to an extremely private paved back-garden, where the perimeter walls extend to almost 3m. It is planted with black bamboo and potted specimen trees and gets plenty of sun in summer thanks to its southwesterly orientation.
Upstairs, the main bedroom is to the back and has a smart, roof-lit shower en suite. The other double bedroom is where Fox’s twins now sleep. Previously Fox had used it as an office. There’s a family bathroom at this level, plenty of coat storage and a light-filled landing.
