This distinctive Crosshaven home has stunning views to lift the spirits, but also has some quirky hidden depths, finds Tommy Barker.

No 3 Grand View Terrace is in mint condition, says Tommy Barker. Pictures: Ted Murphy

Tommy Barker hears of swift buyers demand for the renowned MOS Homes builders’ 210-house scheme, Heathfield, at Carriganarra.

This urban suburb on Cork’s north side is on the way back up; so too is this much-loved home, writes Tommy Barker

THE imminent sale of the Elysian tower development to an as-yet unconfirmed international fund, with 217 fully let apartments and commercial units at what’s understood to be a 5% return, may see a snowball effect of REITs and funds interested in Cork city’s multi-family unit sector.

There have been calls for an urgent public update on the status of Cork’s stalled events centre project as a new report shows how the city is poised for a 30% boost to its hotel bed capacity.

A LONG-established, family-run pub between two of Cork city’s suburban sporting heartlands, rugby at Musgrave Park and soccer at Turner’s Cross stadium, has another claim to fame – it is the closest licensed premises to the grave of Fr Theobald Mathew, the Apostle of Temperance.

A VALUE of over €1 million per acre has been put on what is surely one of the best located suburban Cork sites to come to market in a decade, in Bishopstown, close to the CUH, third level colleges and the city’s ring road.

PROPERTY fund IPUT, with some €2bn in investments and which celebrates 50 years in the investment game this year, is seeking to offload three Cork city centre retail investments at the western end of Patrick Street, guiding €9.5 million, or a c 6.15% yield.

A Dunkathel area home within reach of Cork city comes with optional multiple acres, says Tommy Barker.

There’s been a mix of receiver and private sales at the Ardfield development in outer Douglas, Cork — built by Fleming Construction — and prices in the past year have gone from €150,000 to €260,000, depending on the section, size and condition. 

The good times are back for executives at one Dublin-based property firm, with directors having a doubling in average pay in one year to almost €290,000.

The classically styled limestone building on Cork city’s historical Coal Quay, occupied by the successful restaurant and bar the Cornstore, has been put up for sale as an invesment.

TWO key moves this week may put Cork city on the investor and retail radar, as the city centre inches back from the slack years of recession.

Tommy Barker finds that Glanmire Rectory fits the ‘one of the best in town’ bill as demand for high-end homes makes a remarkable recovery.

Spiralling rents are undermining efforts to combat homelessness, according to the Peter McVerry Trust.

HOTELS in Cork, Kerry, Clare and Tipperary all feature in the latest burst of investor and end-user activity in the hospitality sector market.

New owners of Cork city’s Metropole Hotel are the Philips Hotel Group, who acquired the Cork International Airport Hotel, for c €5m, back in 2012.

Tommy Barker enjoys the privacy that the aspect of Kinsale’s Old Rectory bestows and reflects on the history of this charming, elegant classic.

Hot on the heels of the sales of 10 out of 15 new homes left at Maryborough Ridge comes a family home resale, where a four-bed semi-d at 23 Edgewood, within the outer-Douglas scheme, is guided at €375,000 by Glenn O’Connor of DNG Creedon.

Kinsale’s Carlton House hotel, developed by Gable Holdings in 2006 on a wooded 90 acre site overlooking Cork's scenic Oysterhaven Bay at a then-reported cost of €35m, is now for sale with Savills, for receivers, guiding €4.25 million.

The sale has closed on the former Lovetts’ restaurant in Cork’s suburbs, for 20% over its guide. 

Irish hotels are back in business - they’ve sold like hot-cakes during 2014, with over 50 finding new owners, with €450m changing hands in the process.

Expected to sell in two lots is a Killarney golf course with a 20-year pedigree, overlooking 200 year old trees, a 15th century castle - and the four-story shell of an uncompleted 120-bed hotel and lodges project.

A talent-show fundraiser run by estate agents Savills in Cork, Dublin and Belfast cities last week raised over €50,000 for cancer services in each of the three locations, entertaining over 1,000 people in the process. And, Louis Walsh impressions featuree among the three different judging panels in the Cork/Dublin/Belfast’s ‘Got Talent’ shows.

AS agents Savills predict that 2015 will be the best year for retail in Cork since the downturn began in 2008, and witha number of tenant deals and relocations completed along Patrick’s Street (including SuperDry into the Moderne), a 75,000 sq ft site is now on the market for €6m at Grand Parade/Patrick Street: and retail deals are also flowing at suburban Mahon Point Shopping Centre for its owners, Deka.

Billed as Cork City’s "last great retail site of note", a plot of more than half an acre on St Patrick’s St and Grand Parade — including the Capitol Cinema site and Central Shoe Stores — goes for sale next week.

The Construction Industry Federation is "disappointed" Budget 2015 didn't address the high cost of building in Ireland.

Luck, and timing, and what might have been....but that’s no consolation for the Fleming Group, whose costly buy-in €245m site assembly vision for Sandyford on Dublin’s southside is only now coming to fruition, as some of its fruits get sold on again.

Monaco, the tax haven on the French Riviera, is experiencing a luxury-housing boom that includes the world’s most expensive penthouse, as developers prepare for an influx of millionaires and billionaires escaping higher taxes or a loss of banking privacy.

Following straight after the sale of Dublin’s The Marker Residences, with 84 apartments and six commercial units for over €50m for Brehon Capital Partners/Midwest Holdings, agents Savills bring an adjacent Grand Canal Square 250-seat restaurant for sale, guiding €3.5 million.

A contemporary Limerick city 124-bed hotel comes for sale as the city enjoys its period as Irish City of Culture — and as trending.ie figures show Limerick hotel occupancy up 7%.

The 100-bed Central Hotel in the centre of Tralee town, and built as the Abbeygate 20 years ago, is for sale for €1m.

A turnaround in the fortunes and occupancy levels of Cork city’s premier retail boulevard Patrick Street is predicted in the next year, with significant national international brand names set to arrive and take significant floor space.

A Belfast tower building 11 storeys higher than the Republic’s tallest structure, the Elysian, has been sold as part of a loan sale.

Size: Sq m 232 (2,500 sq ft)

More than 180 hotel jobs in Tipperary and Cork have been secured with the sales of two well-known county hotels, The Anner, in Thurles, and the Midleton Park Hotel, in Cork.

British pub group Mitchells & Butlers is understood to be sizing up expansion opportunities across Ireland, with up to six potential locations already thought to have been identified in Cork and Dublin.