Yes there are bad areas in Bray, just like in every large town in Ireland. Most of it is fine though.
There are 4 "luxury" apartments currently being built on the Killarney road, can't remember the name of the development or the estate agent, it's near St. Fergals church though if you want to drive by it.
I saw that another new development get a mention in the paper - maybe the Sunday Tribune or the Times last friday, can't for the life of me remember the name of it, something romantic sounding like "riverbrook", built on the banks of the dargle anyway!
sorry for those vague references, if anything else comes back to me I'll let you know! There's a lot of new development in Greystones and Kilcoole if you wanted to go a bit further south?