In search of the magic million

Kitsborough was the biggest house sale in Cork this year, exceeding its €1.5m-plus guide price, writes Property Editor Tommy Barker

IT’S a happy omen, of sorts. The strongest house sale of the year in Cork (at €1.5 million-plus) was a house that featured extensively in these Irish Examiner Property pages, on the very weekend we launched our new look Property and Interiors package.

The successful sale was of a very special property mix, a riverside estate of 70 acres, where you could walk your land in the morning, and walk into the city centre in the afternoon.

Kitsborough House, on the Lee Road by Carrigrohane featured over several pages here on April 9, 2011, and was being sold by the family of the late judge Sean O’Leary. Although a modern 1990s build, the 4,000 sq ft six-bed house Kitsborough had deep roots, replacing a Queen Anne house on this River Lee estate where previous owners included the Waggett family for the first 150 years, the Riordan family and the Wood family — whose descendant Richard Wood this past year sold off his prize dairy here from Rockrohan just across the river by Inchigaggin.

Kitsborough was put up for sale in April guiding €2.2m by Sheila O’Flynn of Sherry FitzGerald, who later reduced the asking price to €1.85 million for the trophy package. It’s likely to have sold for between €1.5m and the €1.85m guide, and was bought “as a lifestyle move” by a family living in the city.

It marks the third year when Sherry FitzGerald had some of the top Cork house sales, with Cregane Manor in Rosscarbery back in 2009/2010, and a Montenotte home in an off-market deal in 2010, both selling for about €1.5/€1.6m.

Gone ‘Sale Agreed’ and due to sign before Christmas in Cork was Ballybrack, a Georgian family home of 4,500 sq ft on the edge of Douglas village, on 1.8 luscious wooded acres. It hit the market with Catherine McAuliffe of Savills in June, guiding a modest €1.2m for a very special ‘hidden oasis’ package, and is being sold for a figure understood to be between the magic €1m and the €1.2m asking price. It’s a matter of conjecture what it could have made a few years ago, and must be a banker of a solid buy for years to come.

“We have to be at the very bottom end of the market for good houses like this,” said the Savills agent, while Savills and Sherry FitzGerald jointly were involved in Cork’s other known €1m-plus property sale. They handled the sale, for a receiver, of Harbour Lodge, a 10-bed B&B in Scilly Walk, Kinsale, which was bought by Irish buyers for conversion back to a private residence.

What’s clear from this mere trio of 2011 €1m-plus sales — apart from how hard it is to hit this sort of price level — is the primacy of location, and of course the sheer value compared to the peak time mayhem of, say, 2005. Back in 2005, these pages were able to round up over two dozen Cork sales above the €1m mark, of which six were for over €2m.

Headline makers of the boom 2004-2006 period include Ballynatray, an estate of hundreds of acres on the Blackwater, selling for €11.2m (and now open to paying guests) as well as Gortalough and Inneskerr on great grounds on the Rochestown Road, each making about €4m via Lisney in 2004 and 2007. Record for a city house remains Woodlawn, on a several acres in Sunday’s Well, bought for over €5m by a motor dealer as a family home, sold via Marshs who also hold the city’s auction record, standing at €2.7m for Rosenheim, a Georgian villa on the Blackrock Road, sold in 2006 and which has been massively invested in since by its shipping business family owners.

The likes of those sales may never be seen again. A ‘mere’ million is something now to aim for.

Picture: The Millpond at Kitsborough, Leemount, Carrigrohane, Co Cork, is a riverside estate of 70 acres, where you could walk your land in the morning and walk into the city centre in the afternoon.