News this morning of another distressed auction, this time being organised entirely by local property companies, Gmac Property Limited of Castletownbere and Mac Estate Agents Bantry Limited (their auction website is here). The auction is scheduled to take place on 24th June, 2011 at 12 midday at The Radisson Hotel, Little Island in Cork. There seems to be 43 properties in the auction and the Irish Independent this morning claims that there will be “nearly €20m” of property on offer. There are no reserve prices available on their website, but there are prices quoted in the format “Price: In the Region of …” All of the properties are apparently in Munster and the auctioneers seem to be touting for additional property to be sold. Discounts of “up to 60%” are said to be on offer though it is not quite clear what the discount is based upon – NAMA, Sherry Fitzgerald and recent auction results suggest prices have dropped by over 50% from peak, DAFT,ie, Myhome.ie, Permanent TSB/ESRI and the Department of the Environment Heritage and Local Government think we’re about 40% off peak and Standard and Poor’s think we’re 33% off peak.
Apparently the auctioneers were impressed by the interest in the Allsop/Space auction in the Shelbourne Hotel in April when 80-odd properties fetched just over €14m in one day. There is a second Allsop/Space auction planned for 7th July, 2011 with 200 lots available though the catalogue will only be available from the start of June.
Last year, we were referring to an auction with 20 lots as “mega”. But with an estimated 33,000 new properties in ghost estates and an overhang of vacant property overall, estimated to be well over 100,000 and with NAMA starting to sell into the Irish market (no specific properties to report yet though a prominent NAMA developer, the Fleming Group, placed over 100 properties for sale on the DAFT.ie property website yesterday), the prediction on here is that these auctions will be regarded as unexceptional in a few months.
Finally, although the Independent calls this auction “distressed”, the properties on offer don’t visually appear to fall into this category in the sense that they appear well-kept and in good condition. Perhaps we need a better term for these large-scale auctions in Ireland’s post-bubble era.
UPDATE: 25th June, 2011. There is a separate entry here which details the fiasco of the auction in Cork which just saw two (possibly just one as there is speculation that one buyer pulled out after the auction) of the 60+ lots sold.
NAMA Wine Lake 
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Is it possible to add a facebook share facility to your blog
@Simon, very helpful suggestion. Thanks. And done!
so Allsop sell 82 in (primarily) greater Dublin area for 14 m. These guys are selling 43 properties in (primarily it appears) remote W Cork for almost 20 m or 465 k average per unit.
Seems high. Some lovely properties in some really lovely locations, but average incomes in this area is definitely well below that of the greater Dublin area.
Dont see this working quite so well as Allsops, who have another auction on the way in the coming months.
Yes, just like the Cork houses yesterday, not really distressed sale prices at all, so your conclusion that this new era is upon us is premature.
@KOR, it was the Irish Independent that described this as a “distressed auction”. Looking at the prices and the condition of the properties, I agree with you that this doesn’t look very distressed at all and it may well be that these local auctioneers are riding on the shirt-tails of the Allsop/Space auction mania. Personally I think “distressed” is a great marketing word, and terms such as “closing down sale” in shop windows or “baby forces sale of car” in the classifieds could all improve their appeal by squeezing the word “distressed” in.
As I said in the last paragraph, perhaps we need a new word for these large-scale auctions in post-bubble Ireland.
so we are told of an upcoming sale:
“the sale represents a “once in a lifetime chance” to obtain properties at 1980s prices…..”
mmm
for those of us over thirty this is a second in a lifetime actually, ……and that’s the whole problem.