To the manor born comes at a price

ARE you to the Manor Born?

A trading up house in Cork city’s western suburbs will have a small but select queue at its doors given the shortage of trading up stock and new house options in the vicinity.

Bishopstown has loads of estate houses built from the 1960s on, but the brakes were virtually slammed on by the 1980s, and few new developments have flowed since as the suburb butts up against the green belt between it and Ballincollig.

The Manor is a late 1980s development of 22 detached homes on the Model Farm Road, close to the Tennis Village, with CIT, the Model Farm Road Technology Park and the University Hospital nearby, and UCC and the Bon Secours only a bit further off.

Re-sales at the Manor are thin on the ground, so for those with Manorial ambitions, the chance for a shot at no 3 will prompt a flurry of family re-mortgaging and trading up discussions.

In price terms, it compares broadly with the up-market Hayfield scheme further out the Model Farm Road, where prices for new stock range from 490,000 to 640,000.

No 3 The Manor has a price guide of €640,000 with Sheila O’Flynn of Sherry FitzGerald’s Cork city offices, and trades an extra bedroom, garage and conservatory over Hayfield for its 9% stamp duty burden.

In what she says is spot-on condition, it has space galore for a family, taking in five bedrooms, four of which are double sized, along with lots of ground floor rooms and a large extra high conservatory.

It has about 2,200 sq ft of space in all (plus a detached garage,) and ground floor rooms include a kitchen with breakfast bar, glazed doors to the conservatory, a drawing room, dining room, family room and utility.

The conservatory is bright and welcoming, off the kitchen, with extra high lean-to roof with wood panelling and inset Velux windows and has a wood floor.

Ceiling heights in the main reception rooms are higher than standard at 9’, and the drawing room is a large space with a bay window, quality fireplace and corniced ceiling.

Both the dining room and family rooms have wood floors.

The house, has mature private grounds, off street parking, patio off the conservatory, a detached garage, oil heating and double glazing.