Wave goodbye to city dwelling and sample life beside the seaside

SEASIDE houses close enough to commute to city jobs are on the crest of a wave, judging by the €575,000-plus price guide with this Fountainstown dormer bungalow.

It has got 2,100 sq ft of good living space, a site of a third of an acre but the price level is driven up not by these attributes but by the sea view it has over Fountainstown beach and Ringabella Bay just west of the mouth of Cork Harbour.

Fountainstown, traffic snarls in Carrigaline notwithstanding, is a 30 minute drive from Cork city, and increasingly buyers have valued homes here for full-time and intensively used holiday home use, says Roy Dennehy, selling this c 1990 dormer and not prepared to rule out the possibility it may be bought as a second home.