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Buyers can’t stop flocking to Donegal
 WHILE
most of Ireland is experiencing a slowdown in the residential property
market Co. Donegal is booming.
Ireland’s largest property website Daft.ie’s latest survey
shows healthy house prices are the order of the day in the first four
months of 2007.
The report also shows the twin towns of Ballybofey and Stranorlar in particular
are performing exceptionally well.
Donegal has seen some of the biggest increases in asking prices in the
last six months more than likely a spill over of Northern Ireland’s
current booming market.
Asking prices for properties in Letterkenny during the first quarter of
2007 were on average 8.6 per cent higher than in the third quarter of
2006 — and in Ballybofey and Stranorlar prices are up by 10.8 per
cent.
Elsewhere in the county they were up by an average of 9.3 per cent.
The average asking price for a four-bed semi-detached house in Ballybofey
or Stranorlar in the first quarter was just over e228,000.
Ballybofey estate agent Martin McGowan of Sherry Fitzgerald McGowan says
the much talked about slowdown in the housing market was having no effect
in Donegal.
His assertion is that Donegal prices are remaining buoyant because of
the massive influx of Northern investors who are purchasing property in
the county.
He said: “The Northern buyers are not just coming from the border
counties of Tyrone and Derry but from as far away as Belfast.
“They see the value that’s to be had here. They also see the
renewed confidence in the local economy of the twin towns such as the
new Butt Hall Centre, new hotel expansions and a new shopping centre on
the Trusk Road.
“Lettings are also very strong here as the towns are very central
to the rest of the county and are also close to the border.”
Mr McGowan said that he sold three-bed semi-detached houses in the Lonsdale
estate recently for e157,000 but now they have increased in value by as
much as 22 per cent.
He also says people from the North are buying houses in the area for use
as holiday homes.
He said: “Property has become so expensive in the North that people
are releasing equity from their homes and buying houses here to use as
holiday homes and for renting.
“The slowdown that the national media are referring to is mainly
due to a slowdown in south Dublin but it’s flying around this area
and the peace dividend in the North will keep the market strong well in
to the future.”
And property is not the only thing booming in Donegal.
The county has also registered the fifth-highest number of new business
start-ups in the first three months of this year according to figures
published by Bank of Ireland Business Banking.
The first Business Start-Up Barometer of 2007 shows that Donegal has
overtaken Kildare as the fifth most popular location of choice for entrepreneurs
with 119 companies starting up between January and March.
Eimear McDonnell of Bank Of Ireland says it shows that despite much-publicised
problems there is confidence in Donegal with property and construction
the most popular growth areas.
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