Set your site on a sea view
A site fronting on to the beach at Red Strand hits the market in prime selling season and just as the sea temperature also rises.
Proximity to Cork city (less than an hour's drive away) is driving interest in the area just west of Clonakilty. An unconfirmed c€800,000 was paid by city-based buyers for Glebe House in Ardfield, a period Georgian villa with converted coach house, on two acres of gardens.
A mile away and closer to the sea, a 1.6 acre Red Strand site, bounded by a stream and leading to the beach, is a one-off. Not least because it has full planning permission for a 2,300 sq ft traditional style house on the site which was previously occupied by several small wooden chalets, one of which is still standing. The beach is regarded as one of West Cork's safest bathing spots, although the Black Rock, in the middle of the bay, is a wave-breaking hazard and has been a boat-wrecker in the past.
Guide price for the site, looking directly out on to the bay to Dirk Cove and Galley Head, is €230,000-plus with Martin Kelleher of SWS Property Services in nearby Clonakilty six miles away, via Ardfield. "Sites with unrestricted planning permission are becoming scarce of late, so this is a unique sale opportunity," he says.
However, he is slow to draw comparison with recent phenomenal sales in the Rosscarbery area, where a three-bed bungalow and a two-bed cottage each went around the €500,000 mark.
"They were almost freak results, there were several really determined bidders on each, but those results shouldn't be taken as benchmarks," he warns.
The Red Strand site has mains water and electricity on site. Design and planning was in the hands of local architect James O'Hea and McCutcheon Mulcahy, planning consultants.
According to John Hodnett of SWS Property Services, who handled the Rosscarbery sales, locations between Clonakilty and Glandore "are very hot, very fluid right now. The fact you are only an hour from Cork means buyers from there will get a lot of use from second homes."
