AN ENTIRE HOUSING estate in Kerry sold for €235,000 at an auction of distressed property in Dublin today.

The 14 houses in Castlemaine in Kerry had a reserve price of just €50,000 but a bidding war meant that the eventual winning bid was pushed up significantly.

A large castle in Kildare also up for sale at the Allsop auction sold for €195,000 after attracting huge interest from buyers, pushing the price far in excess of its €50,000 reserve price.

Hundreds of people filled a room at the Shelbourne Hotel in Dublin where 78 out of the 82 distressed properties up for sale ended up being sold, with almost all going for above their reserve price.

“The attendance was as good if not better than previous auctions and there was a lot of strong bidding,” said Angela Keegan of property website MyHome.ie.

The castle in Athy that sold for €195,000. (Image: Allsop)

The single most expensive property of the day was a Georgian building on Dublin’s Merrion Square which sold for €1.4 million – €400,000 more than its reserve price.

The second-most expensive property was the now-vacant Stout Bar on the Lower Rathmines Road in Dublin, which had a reserve price of €600,000 but sold for €835,000.

Just two properties sold for less than their reserve price at the Allsop auction.  The 78 properties sold for a total of €11,286,000.

The single cheapest property was a 3.3 acre plot of land in Sligo which had a reserve price of €5,000 and sold for €27,000.