Two for joy on the sunny sites

WOULD someone buy two adjoining Well Road houses just for the sake of a decent-sized site for one new home - even if it cost them €1 million?

The answer is “quite possibly”, given the remarkable prices paid in recent months for good southside house-site locations in Cork.

Cases in point are a Crab Lane cleared site with planning for a new two-storey home sold for over €800,000, and a 1980s detached house off the Blackrock Road by Lindville, selling for over €1.5m, while another e1m-plus Blackrock house may also face the same fate.

Over the hill in Douglas, and on the market over the summer, the Well Road bungalow Lugano is now priced at €600,000 by Sarah Hyde of recently-appointed agents DNG Harris.

Next door Global Properties have a derelict bungalow for sale for €400,000: the latter house it has planning permission for a replacement two-storey house.

Merge the properties together, and you’d get a site worthy of a decent sized new home. Douglas village is a few minutes’ walk away.

Lugano, on a site of close to a quarter of an acre, is a fine buying option for a family, given its five bedrooms, two reception rooms plus study off the family livingroom and kitchen/dining area.