Steady increases in Cork’s south suburbs with semis leading demand
CORK CITY SOUTH SUBURBS AVERAGE PRICE: €320,000 Douglas, Blackrock, Rochestown, Mahon Change: s 5%
One Year Forecast: s 6% Assessing Agent: Savills THE MARKET IN these suburban markets off the Lee there has been more choice available to buyers for some time, leading to far more restrained inflation. Central Bank lending restraints kicked in around these leafy lanes in earnest two years ago and these continued to exert a cooling effect.
Prices are up 5pc on this time last year, slightly below our 6pc forecast from the start of 2018.
Savills, our experts on the ground, expect more of the same over the next 12 months. Nevertheless, first-time buyer couples are typically in their late twenties here compared with those in Dublin suburbs are a decade older and those in Galway city who are being pushed out altogether.
There have been plenty of new schemes about with choices in locations like Aylesbury in Ballintemple and Ballyveigh, where two, three and four-bedroom homes are selling from €290,000 to €790,000. With help-to-buy knocking off €20,000 and an A-rating ensuring minimal heating costs, new homes continue to take a good deal of steam out of the second-hand sector.
With the city’s airport within easy reach, these suburbs are increasingly the home of Ireland’s most unusual commuters, the cross-channel travellers who fly out early on Monday morning from Cork Airport to London and arrive back on Thursday to work a day from home. Many of them are at their desks abroad after shorter commute times than their Irish city commuter comparisons. For this reason, the market could be susceptible to some stormy seas from Brexit.
Not surprisingly it’s the threebed semi that has seen the biggest value hike of 6pc from €302,000 to €320,000. The price of a standard family home has increased by a third over the last five years.
The four-bed semi followed with a value increase from €430,000 to €450,000.
And perhaps a sign that investors are taking a stronger interest in this market is the fact that the two-bed apartment also saw a value rise of 6pc — from €212,000 to €225,000.
There was less interest in threebed bungalows, which nonetheless turned in a 4pc increase of €15,000 from €355,000 to €370,000. In contrast to many other urban locations where Corporation houses are showing a major surge, three-bed former local authority homes have added just €5,000 in 12 months. What these suburbs did have in common with other locations is a sustained cooling off at the very top end where luxurious homes are taking longer to sell. The average value for a detached property on its own ground has gone up by 4pc from €1.3m to €1.35m.
Savills believes that despite its
congestion issues, Douglas has the propensity to see prices rising ahead of the pack in the south suburbs in 2019 — based on the fact that its plainer but well-located homes might now be lagging in value compared with those in other locations.