[Ixelles]

Hoping to tap into some local knowledge on Maynooth with this one:
Does anyone have any experience of living in or near Carton Court estate in Maynooth? I've been browsing houses for sale in the area and it looks nice but the asking prices are a bit lower than other areas which have been recommended on threads about estates in Maynooth.

I'm not from the area so looking for reasons why houses in Carton Court would be in lower price bracket. Is it just that it's a longer walk to the village than, for example, from Parklands? Or have a handful of motivated sellers just become a bit more sensible in the interest of finding a buyer?

Or is there something about the build-quality of the houses; anti-social behaviour; traffic or environmental issues which are not obvious at first look?

I came across this house on MyHome and think it looks okay although there's no photo of the garden and it seems to be NW-facing. Anything about this location that has made it hard for sellers to shift houses there? Specifically, looking at the satellite image, does anyone know what is located just south of the estate? If it's a decrepit nuclear-processing plant I'd like to know in advance...

All advice/comments welcome!

[gman2k]

http://maps.google.ie/?ll=53.369632,...06899&t=h&z=17

http://maps.google.ie/?ll=53.369836,...13.01,,0,-0.98

That looks out onto waste land and the back of Lidl and further across to the motorway and business park.
Houses themselves are relatively old for Maynooth estates, but prob much better than Maynooth Park area.

[Ixelles]

Originally Posted by gman2k

http://maps.google.ie/?ll=53.369632,...06899&t=h&z=17

http://maps.google.ie/?ll=53.369836,...13.01,,0,-0.98

That looks out onto waste land and the back of Lidl and further across to the motorway and business park.
Houses themselves are relatively old for Maynooth estates, but prob much better than Maynooth Park area.

Thanks gman2k,
That helps explain it. I saw that there were two others sale agreed in the same estate for 220k which is a big jump from 180k. Maybe the 'view' of Lidl and the wasteland helps explain it. Still no takers for three months at 180k.

[Moonbeam]

I live near it .It is a very nice quite estate but is beside the motorway.

[Ixelles]

Originally Posted by Moonbeam

I live near it .It is a very nice quite estate but is beside the motorway.

Thanks Moonbeam - appreciate the info. Wouldn't want to hear heavy traffic all day (and night) although, it looks like there's a bit of a gap between the estate and the road. Might have to visit it and see whether you can hear the M4 from the estate.

Drove around it a month or two ago just to get a feel for the place and it seemed quiet. Bit of greenery around, although the houses are relatively close together. I'm not from Maynooth but the village looked pretty good, even on a rainy Saturday morning

[Moonbeam]

We moved to Maynooth about 3 years ago.
It is a nice town with everything you need on a daily basis and all within walking distance.
if you have kids put their names down in schools asap.
Rockfield and Parklands are lovely but tend me to be more expensive then the older estates.
The big advantage to this side of town are there are no students where we are and I can not imagine there being many in Carton Court either.

[Ixelles]

Originally Posted by Moonbeam

We moved to Maynooth about 3 years ago.
It is a nice town with everything you need on a daily basis and all within walking distance.
if you have kids put their names down in schools asap.
Rockfield and Parklands are lovely but tend me to be more expensive then the older estates.
The big advantage to this side of town are there are no students where we are and I can not imagine there being many in Carton Court either.

Thanks Moonbeam, that's very encouraging. I did see a few rooms for rent (presumably to students) on the Accommodation forum but that doesn't worry me too much. As long as it's not party central it should be grand. It's relatively far from the college so probably not the most popular with students.

Had a look online at Parklands but will check out Rockfield now. Parklands looks like a nicely laid out estate but the price difference seems a bit much for me. I like that's it's closer to the village, although if you were at the back end of that estate it would take the bones of 10 minutes to get to Straffan Road.

Do you mind me asking if you have kids in any of the primary schools? And/or if any of them are seen as particularly good or bad?

Thanks

[Moonbeam]

MIne are all too young but I have one in Naionra and way down the waiting list to start in the gaelscoil Sept 2013 (demand is way greater then supply for places) there is also an educate together school then there are a Loretto girls school and a Boys National school at the other side of town.
There is 1 VEC run secondary school for all the kids and it has a fantastic reputation.

[Ixelles]

Originally Posted by Moonbeam

MIne are all too young but I have one in Naionra and way down the waiting list to start in the gaelscoil Sept 2013 (demand is way greater then supply for places) there is also an educate together school then there are a Loretto girls school and a Boys National school at the other side of town.
There is 1 VEC run secondary school for all the kids and it has a fantastic reputation.

Cheers Moonbeam, that's all very useful. It'll be a few years before school but I'll take your advice on getting serious about pre-enrolling now

[gman2k]

The noise from the motorway can be heard much much further away in Maynooth!
Until the surface is redone to a low noise tarmac , Carton Court will still be affected.

[MYOB]

Carton Court is eventually going to have the long (1980s) planned ringroad built alongside it - this is what the wasteland between it and Lidl/the motorway is for. May have some increased noise as a result.

Other things to watch out for is that because its a very old estate a lot of the houses I've been in have had comically badly installed central heating. Very hard to notice on a nice summers day though.

The big thing that could be a nuclear reprocessing facility is, much more boringly, a vehicle importer and distributor. Brian Noone and Bartons Buses are the people on that site.

[Ixelles]

Originally Posted by MYOB

Carton Court is eventually going to have the long (1980s) planned ringroad built alongside it - this is what the wasteland between it and Lidl/the motorway is for. May have some increased noise as a result.

Other things to watch out for is that because its a very old estate a lot of the houses I've been in have had comically badly installed central heating. Very hard to notice on a nice summers day though.

The big thing that could be a nuclear reprocessing facility is, much more boringly, a vehicle importer and distributor. Brian Noone and Bartons Buses are the people on that site.

Thanks MYOB, that's really useful and perhaps helps explain why that particular house hasn't shifted at that price (along with the wider economic problems).

Matter of interest, any other estates that you'd recommend in Maynooth?

[MYOB]

All the 1970s-early 90s estates are the cheaper parts of the town, generally - Maynooth Park, Carton Court, Kingsbry, Beaufield, etc. The south of the town around the Straffan and Rathcoffey was developed up more earlier.

The newer estates still seem to be asking for more money, whether they're getting it is another question entirely. These would be Parklands, Newtown Court, Moyglare Village etc.

I'm in the process of attempting to buy here myself (already live in the town for quite some time) and there's often a differential of six figures between similar sized houses in "older" and "newer" estates, even houses that have had double glazing and newer heating installed. Doesn't cost six figures to rectify insulation etc so its definitely worth looking for an older one - they're often larger (but smaller gardens) too.

With that specific house, I think they've done some trickery on the kitchen shot, from memory of how those are laid out. Kitchen is really, really small in them.

[Ixelles]

Useful info MYOB. I reckon it'll be first half of next year before we really get serious about viewing but there seems to be very slow turnover of houses this year so far. More or less the same places for sale for six months - nothing new coming along and the houses on the market are sitting there for quite a while.

Very interesting what you say about old vs new estates. Can only presume that it's partly a case of people needing to recoup some of what they paid themselves over the past decade or so. Parklands houses look very nice but the rooms are not massive and, as you say, it's hard to work out why they would be 100k more than houses in the older estates, notwithstanding the need for some upgrading work on older houses.

Next month the Property Price Database is due to be published so we'll have a better idea of what people are actually paying/accepting for houses.

I haven't properly started on the mortgage application rollercoaster but by all accounts it's exceptionally difficult, particularly if you're self-employed (which I am). Hard to imagine how people are finding 300k for ordinary homes in Maynooth. There can't be that many people with cash savings, inheritances, parental gifts etc. which take them into that kind of bracket.

I know that place in Carton Court for 180k has been up for a while and may be imperfect but from a selfish point of view it's encouraging to see decent homes for < 200k. There are also three-beds in Beaufield and Meadowbrook, as you've probably seen for 175k/180k. It's not just that I don't think that houses in newer estates are 'worth' >250k it's also that getting a mortgage for even half of that could be a major pain for someone who doesn't have a permanent job.

Good luck with the search. Maybe this time next year I'll see you at a residents' association meeting

Originally Posted by MYOB

All the 1970s-early 90s estates are the cheaper parts of the town, generally - Maynooth Park, Carton Court, Kingsbry, Beaufield, etc. The south of the town around the Straffan and Rathcoffey was developed up more earlier.

The newer estates still seem to be asking for more money, whether they're getting it is another question entirely. These would be Parklands, Newtown Court, Moyglare Village etc.

I'm in the process of attempting to buy here myself (already live in the town for quite some time) and there's often a differential of six figures between similar sized houses in "older" and "newer" estates, even houses that have had double glazing and newer heating installed. Doesn't cost six figures to rectify insulation etc so its definitely worth looking for an older one - they're often larger (but smaller gardens) too.

With that specific house, I think they've done some trickery on the kitchen shot, from memory of how those are laid out. Kitchen is really, really small in them.

[Moonbeam]

We bought in one of the older estates but a student free one.
Your money would go far in Meadowbrook or Beaufield but with a young family and long term plans to live there I would not buy in either.
We also bought in an older estate to get a bigger house cheaper with the potential to extend if we need to.
The turnover of good priced nice family homes never seems very high here.
.