Cavan apartments fail to reach reserve at auction

Michael Cryan

Fifty-eight apartments on the outskirts of Cavan town failed to reached their reserve when they went under the hammer at a Dublin auction last Wednesday.

Farnham Court apartments, which is located close to Cavan General Hospital and County Cavan Golf Club as well as the town, had a reserve of €1.4m exclusive of VAT which was slightly down from the original €1.7m. The entire property comes to 3,803.1 sq metres (40,936 sq ft).

The Allsop Auction in the Shelbourne Hotel was packed with about 2,000 in attendance and a protest was held outside the hotel at the start of the auction.

Although there were 126 lots originally, 10 were withdrawn prior to the auction getting under way, two were sold prior to it which is a new development, and three were sold after the hammer came down with the reserve not reached. The Cavan development was one of the biggest lots to come under the hammer on the day.

Local auctioneer and asset-manager Don Crotty, who attended the auction, said the Cavan property was withdrawn just shy of the reserve.

'It was not a major surprise and I hope to meet a couple of people this week in relation to it,' he said.

While the apartments were not sold the property is certainly not off the market, he stresses. According to Mr. Crotty a fair few questions came in relation to the property just prior to the auction. They had to be answered as people have to know what they are buying, he adds.

He hoped to speak with at least four people this week alone who were at the auction regarding the property. 'I don’t think everyone was that disappointed that it didn’t sell.'

Continuing he said, obviously the bank would have hoped the apartments would gone for more but it didn’t mean it would not happen this week. 'The bank have not dropped the reserve on it.'

The reserve was brought down to €1.4m which is exclusive of VAT. Mr. Crotty points out that some of the bidders at the auction were coming to Cavan this week along with two more interested parties.

He admits that to purchase something like that is a big decision for anyone, and there is a big management issue with regard to managing it and none of the interested people lived in Cavan. There was a lot more work than what people envisaged, he added.

Even if the bank decides it doesn’t reach the reserve, it will probably be taken off the market but it will all depend on how negotiations go this week, Mr. Crotty concluded.