It’s a reflection of Ireland in the 2000s. The fabulously successful Westlife pop group sold millions of singles, and one of its members Shane Filan branched out into property development with his brother Finbarr. Initially made a few bob, but then the crash came, the development company Shafin Developments (SHAne and FINbarr) had receivers appointed last May 2012, and Shane headed to the UK where he has been declared bankrupt, though he is scheduled to be discharged in June 2013.
Today, his mansion in Sligo has come on the market through agents Sherry Fitzgerald with a price tag of €990,000. There is a listing on Daft.ie complete with 28 photographs of the 5-bedroom mansion on just under 5 acres, in the “southern suburbs” of Sligo town. Below is a photograph of the property via Daft.ie and the bankruptcy record at the UK insolvency service in which Shane’s address is withheld.
So, a bit of a sad day for Shane perhaps as his affairs are unwound, but it could be worse, he could have married Kerry Katona.
They’re optimistic on the selling price – http://www.daft.ie/searchsale.daft?id=622352 within 20 mins drive of Cork City looks similar (albeit is unfinished inside), has similar size, but has 41 acres of good agricultural land adjacent – worth 10k an acre? Been on sale for at least a year at 860k including the land…
They would be better off splitting the land from the house. It’s just an annoyance now since it neither fit in one or the other market. 40 acres is a nice chewable amount for many farmers. Might even make 12 if a few had an eye on it, but I doubt it. But now, for someone buying a house it’s 500-600 over and for the farmers it’s twice and probably more.
The days of room for a pony are long gone.
On the place in Cork – agree – don’t understand why they havn’t separated the lots – there are several farmers in the area who made a packet from selling road frontage land during the boom, so imagine there is a local market for the field. Don’t know how much it would cost to complete the house – plumbing/wiring/structural/landcaping work is complete. But it is an impressively sized, and comparable house to the Westlife one, with arguably less than half the selling price.
That house and farm are the other side of the R590 from where the Daft people have that arrow thingy. Coming south off the N22 on the R590, it’s the first right ( the Kilmurry road) and the house is at the junction of the next left with the farm south of the road down to the river.