While a code of secrecy applies, there also exists a pool of top homeowners willing to sell their properties if the price is right, even though they are not on the market.

Beyond the Dublin property hothouse, sales on the hush-hush are just as prevalent.

“Easily 50% of sales in the top bracket are carried out in private,” says Michael Daniels, a Co Cork agent. “It’s a privacy issue generally. Vendors don’t want their lives disrupted by a marketing campaign. It’s also a sellers’ market, so they have every opportunity of securing market value without ever testing it publicly. They know they may even get a premium for having gone the private route,” he says.

There are “dozens” of Co Cork properties in the €5m-plus bracket, according to Daniels — which, considering the high demand for such properties, helps to keep the private market nicely exclusive.

Michael Flatley’s Castle Hyde and Ballinatray House, Co Cork, believed to have changed hands for €12m last year, are examples of Cork’s money-magnets. On the confidential market, American buyers have dropped away and “homegrown” househunters are moving to the fore. “These are high-net-worth individuals and if they set their sights on something, the sky is the limit,” Daniels adds.

Expats are now also a force to be reckoned with. Daniels estimates their presence on the Cork market has helped push prices up by 20% annually over the past five years.

He adds that such an abundance of cash makes gazumping relatively common in sales conducted under a veil of secrecy.

Cork’s property goldmine locations include the western edge of Cork City, the Midleton region, Kinsale and other pretty harbour areas. Meanwhile, the superhome belt in Dublin has widened over the past few years. Dublin 4’s monopoly of the upper-echelon market is finally starting to slip.

“Whereas all of the top-end homes at this level would once have been confined to Dublin 4, now we see it’s spread further, into places like south Co Dublin and Dublin 6. Certain studs and period homes with a lot of acreage in Meath and Kildare counties can also perform as highly,” Murgatroyd says.

Co Cork, despite its cachet, is unlikely to produce any properties worth more than €30m in the near future. Even properties in the €5m-€10m bracket must be of the highest possible spec, enormously private and with top-notch security to garner serious attention. Not so in Dublin, where fantastic €50m house price guides may soon make the move from vendor/agent fantasy to hard reality.

“It’s unlikely to happen this year, but I do believe we could well see a handful of €50m guides within the next couple of years,” Murgatroyd says. Yet he doubts such a phenomenon is likely to shake property commentators.

“Walford’s sale didn’t create as many ripples or raise as many eyebrows as it would have years ago. We’re really talking telephone numbers at this point. People can see the wealth and what people are earning.”

So whatever next? In a week during which the OECD slammed Dublin’s property market, saying houses are overvalued by 15%, there’s still little sign of a property market on cloud nine plummeting to earth any time soon. Is the way paved towards €50m, €100m and even €200m superhomes? A laughable concept, perhaps, but the €58m paid for Walford would have had us all in fits less than two years ago. And just look at us now.

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