Shortages in key areas
But like the rest of the country, the county has been calmly getting down to business and starting afresh. More and more people from Ireland and abroad are finding that Kerry is still very much open for business and pleasure and the bonus to the package is that there’s value to be found.
Although there have been stronger sales in his part of the county (such as a property in Dingle that recently sold for €325,000), the more typical area of activity in today’s market is at the €100,000 level.
So says Tralee-based auctioneer Pat Crean of Sherry Fitzgerald Stephenson Crean in Tralee. He notes that there is “definitely an appetite for property out there from people who have money.”
We all know of the property types where over-speculation led to severe price inflation and subsequent dramatic fall in demand, but as Crean himself points out, “not all areas were affected by over-speculation and it is in these areas where there is a shortage of supply.
“There is,” says Crean, “a shortage of keenly-priced detached bungalows in the Tralee area.”
On the demand side of the equation, the signs are of a tentative growth. Those who have cash (such as retired couples who would have sold bigger homes) and those who have mortgages are still out there and they are buying in a market where there is virtually no replacement stock coming through right now.
In Kerry’s other large town – Killarney – a similar phenomenon is being felt with the shortage of good-quality 4-bedroom homes being felt even more acutely than last year.
