Michael Smurfit must feel as if he is living in a ghost town. Things have not being going too well for the good Dr at the K Club.

Not only did his former company Smurfit Kappa pull out of the European golf sponsorship he had organised but his plans to build yet more duplexes at Straffan House in the K Club have been appealed to An Bord Pleanala.

Quite why Smurfit wants to build even more apartments at the golf club which he bought with Gerry Gannon in the summer 2005 for €115m isn't clear.

There are currently around 150 houses and apartments at the club and he must already be surrounded by "for sale" and "to let" signs, as well as empty homes, with some six different agents attempting to flog property there at the moment.

Other billionaires who own homes there include Sean Dunne, Ben Dunne and Noel Smyth, but most are not there all the time.

Not like the good old days when the music played and the address was being feted as billionaires' row.

In more recent times, some of the extravagant homes failed to sell even before the golf extravaganza last year. Last summer, the Irish Times enthused about 6 Churchfields, the €5.5m home on the fifth hole.

The home was bought three years ago by property developer Paul Tiernan from former pop star Ronan Keating. He knocked it down and rebuilt it. It now boasts an extravagant bathroom.

Yet 18 months later, number 6 is still on the market with some €500,000 knocked off the asking price.

Close by, number 15 Churchfields, which is also beside the fifth hole is also for sale for €5.25m through Sherry FitzGerald.

The picture is similar across other K Club developments. Fancy a pad in Ladycastle?

Well, there are six on the market at the moment, ranging from €1.65m for three-bed duplex apartments to €2m for three-bed detached homes.

If these host of homes for sale were not enough to dampen Smurfit's spirits there are some 16 homes and apartments listed solely on the daft.ie website at the K Club. One agent even says in its bumf that the homes "rarely come on the market". If only.

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THE latest theory doing the rounds in some property and banking circles is that London hedge fund boys are having an old fashioned crack at the Mick.

According to the theory, the City boys, sick of Paddy buying up key London landmarks, have seen an opportunity to put the boot in and short Irish bank shares.

The result is that Anglo Irish, a bank which may announce up to 20 per cent earnings growth later this month, is trading on eight times p/e.

If you believe it, it makes them a buy.

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MOST developers are holding onto their trophy developments hoping for a turn in the market next year based on falling interest rates.

But one exception is serial developer Ray Kearns of Glenkerrin Homes who has now decided to put Ballintyre Hall, the listed home at the heart of its upmarket Dublin 16 scheme up for sale.

Glenkerrin won planning permission to turn the home into four apartments but has obviously had a change of mind. The 609sqm home is now guiding €3.5m.

However, prospective buyers would do well to check out the planning applications in Dun Laoghaire county council.

Glenkerrin has two applications in, the most recent was filed only couple of weeks ago.

It looks as though the famous gardens may be only a shadow of their former selves with an application in to build more apartments in the vicinity, which will mean knocking down the garden wall and perhaps some of the feted greenhouses.

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ONE top end home that certainly received plenty of exposure is barred solicitor Michael Lynn's pad out on Thormanby Road in Howth.

Lynn and his wife Brid had not moved in as they were remodelling the house.

If the mortgages are anything to go by, it would have been some job -- if the receiver had not moved in to sell the place to meet his escalating debts.

Lynn had a mortgage of €3.8m on the property which would have paid the bulk of the €5m plus he paid at auction, while his wife had another €3.8m, which was presumably to do with refurbishment.

Her application to hold onto the house on the basis that her mortgage was not commercial was turned down by the judge who noted that the couple were still living in Sandymount during the refurbishment.

New owners may be getting a bargain, as the house was originally put up for auction with an AMV of €6.5m, a full €2m over today's price.

And you get to live close to Riverdance duo Moya Doherty and John McColgan as well as Dolores O'Riordan of the Cranberries -- if that's your kind of thing.

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SEAN Dunne, the erstwhile Baron of Ballsbridge may finally be heading for a green light for his controversial plan to turn Ballsbridge into a high rise Knightsbridge or mini-Dubai, depending on your point of view.

Far from flinging out his plans, the local council planners have merely come back to ask him to clarify many of his claims on traffic, education and social and affordable housing.

The planners are not convinced by many of Dunne's claims that the vast majority of journeys will not be by car and that schools will cope.

But he has merely been asked to go supply further details. Must have been a few sighs of relief at his construction company Mountview Homes.

- Jane Suiter