A Reuters story posted on September 19th that I came across today serves nicely as a nexus of my job (real estate), my apartment search (little space; lots of money) and Dublin, where my sister lives.
10-foot-wide shed sells for $269,100 in Dublin
Startling price for tiny structure highlights Ireland’s real estate boom
DUBLIN, Ireland—A former tool shed built to fill a gap in the middle of a row of Victorian houses in what was once Dublin’s poorest district has found a buyer at a startling price of $269,100 (220,000 euros).
At 10 feet wide and with a floor space of 280 square feet the building was last sold for 500 Irish pounds ($777) in the 1970s.
The red-brick house has no garden and no ground floor windows.
The realtor selling the property said on Monday a sale had been agreed but declined to comment further.
The price tag raised eyebrows even in Ireland where the cost of homes has tripled between 1997 and 2004.
It sounds like a joke, but it’s not. Dublin may not leap to the average person’s mind when he’s thinking of the world’s costliest rental rates, but it ranks highly. Another exmple: According to a study issued last October by international brokerage firm Cushman & Wakefield, real estate on Grafton Street in Dublin is the world’s fifth most expensive, after London’s Oxford Street, Hong Kong’s Causeway Bay, the Champs Elysés in Paris and, of course, Fifth Avenue in Manhattan.