Cork City development is near best in class and here's why

Cork City €400,000

Size: 79 sq m (850 sq ft)

Bedrooms: 2

Bathrooms: 2

BER: B2

This development is near best in class. Tommy Barker explains why.

After a small flurry of very expensive apartment sales at Cork’s riverside Lancaster Gate development over the past two years, things seem to have quietened down a bit – if €400,000 for a two bed can be deemed ‘quiet.’

The 2007-completed apartment development, done by O’Callaghan Properties when they also delivered the new River Lee Hotel, all co-located on the old Jurys Cork hotel site near UCC, “is considered one of the best apartment developments in the city,” according to estate agent Brian Olden, of Cohalan Downing.

He is selling the second floor two-bed apartment No 12 The Fastnet, in a block overlooking the River Lee’s south channel, the ‘new’ River Lee hotel and the even newer student apartment block further upriver, on the former Muskerry service station site.

He guides at an even €400,000 (which is just above the €395k he also seeks for a 1,375 sq ft three bed detached bungalow on Farranlea Road: see p6) and he says it is in excellent condition, has lift access, comes with a basement level car parking space, and has annual service charges of €1,500.

It has a hall, two carpeted bedrooms, one of which is en suite and which has access to a west facing balcony; there’s a main bathroom and a largeish kitchen/living/dining area, with granite topped kitchen units and Neff appliances, and further balcony access.

The Price Register shows 13 sales/resales at Lancaster Gate’s several high-quality blocks since 2010, with some of the top units (including a penthouse) making as much as €780,000, €760,00 and €640,000, but that was for singulalry large units.

Other prices have ranged upwards from €230,000 back in 2014, and the three most recent Fastnet block sales are at €375,000, in January 2019, and at €375,000 and €405,000 in 2018.

There remains an as-yet undeveloped portion of the Lancaster Gate site, at the city end, but as recently as last month O’Callaghan Properties MD Brian O’Callaghan, second generation in the family firm, has said it still remains non-viable to build apartments of scale to sell in the Cork market.

But, at the rate of pick-up in price, to €400,000 for a two-bed (albeit in one of the city’s most highly prized developments) the time to reconsider building may not be too far off?

VERDICT: River setting by city centre and UCC’s leafy campus.