BY ENDA CUNNINGHAM

Just two Galway City properties are set to go under the hammer in a ‘firesale’ auction of nationwide receivership properties next month – two-bed townhouses over the Eyre Square Centre with a price tag of €75,000 – around 85% less than their value at the height of the property boom.

Similar properties are currently on the market for up to €275,000, and would have achieved well over €450,000 at the height of the boom.
Numbers 16 and 17 Eyre Square Centre are both being sold at the Allsop Space auction in the Shelbourne Hotel in Dublin on March 1.

Both sales are on the instruction of receivers who were appointed by banks and the properties are being sold with tenants in situ.

One is achieving a yearly rent of €7,200 while the second is achieving €8,400 per annum.

All of the properties have been set a ‘maximum reserve price’ – the highest bid over this figure secures the property, although selling for below this figure is not ruled out.

It’s the fifth firesale by Allsop Space and will see eight other properties and sites in County Galway go under the hammer.

It will again be closely monitored locally, as it could have a significant knock-on effect of lowering prices even further in the city – already property values are down by around 60% since the top of the market in 2007.

Previous Allsop Space auctions of city properties saw two-bed apartments at Clan House on Dominick Street, which were seized from troubled developer Jimmy Clancy.

They sold for €70,000, €74,000 and €78,000 – around 50% less than similar properties were asking at the time, and down from €300,000 during the boom.

Last September, a pair of two-bed apartments at Glór na Mara on New Dock Street sold as one lot for €144,000 – 60% more than the €90,000 reserve price.