Irish Trophy Homes Lose Allure as Property Millions Vanish - BusinessWeek

Irish Trophy Homes Lose Allure as Property Millions Vanish - BusinessWeek

A six-bedroom Edwardian house on Ireland's most expensive street is on the market for one quarter of the price paid when it was bought six years ago, a sign that the country's property crash isn't sparing high-end properties.

Walford, a house on Shrewsbury Road in Dublin's affluent embassy belt, previously sold for 58 million euros ($77 million), according to Savills Plc, which is offering the empty home for 15 million euros. Interested buyers need to submit bids for the house by Oct. 27 with a 1 million-euro bank draft.

Prices for some of Ireland's trophy homes fell at least as much as the rest of the country's slumping market after the real-estate collapse drained the fortunes of property-boom millionaires. Thorndene, another house on Shrewsbury Road in Dublin's Ballsbridge, is on the market for 8 million euros, down from an asking price of 14 million euros in 2009.

Prime property prices rose faster than the rest of the market during Ireland's boom “because there was a lot of people chasing too few properties, which gave them a spike,” said Wade Wise of Beirne & Wise, who has been selling Irish high -end homes for 12 years. “Come the crash, they've fallen further.”

In property markets including London and Paris, luxury home prices fell less following the financial crisis and recovered more quickly than the broader market on tight supply and investment from abroad. Prices in London neighborhoods such as Knightsbridge and St. John's Wood exceed their pre-recession peaks.