Prices for these homes at Ballinhassig start at €935,000.

WHAT do you do when your land gets rezoned and you find yourself with a couple of acres suitable for housing?

Sell, usually, but this farming family from Ballinhassig went ahead to build their own houses.

And they didn’t go overboard, either, instead they created just three, big houses on big sites in a little dingly dell to the back of Ballinhassig village.

Pacelli Nolan of SWS Property Services Kinsale is selling two of the three-house scheme and they hit the market at the high end for county Cork prices.

Both house average out at 2,700 square feet and come with large sites ranging from 0.3 to 0.4, which explains the guide prices of €935,000 and €945,000. And they come completely finished: floored, tiled, painted and with oak kitchens and granite worktops.

The grounds are almost as good: entrance is through stone pillars and each house is fully landscaped with tarmac driveway and stone wall boundaries to the front.

Set in a larger field, the rest of the land is paddocked fenced with baby beech trees in place for a rustic boundary.

The large sites include some tasty stands of silver birch, ornamental fruit trees and new boundary hedges.

Each house also comes with a detached garage, (with radiators, skirting and attic stairs), which means they could be used immediately as a home office, playroom, or just as superb storage.

The finish is excellent, down to the prolific use of Liscannor stone in the facade, walls and even the fireplaces, the teak fascia and soffitt, natural slate roof and the inexpensive, but tasty, bronze plastic circular drain pipes.

Heating is pressurised, but instant electric are also installed and each house has two ensuites and two bathrooms for four bedrooms.

There is an optional fifth bedroom on the ground floor as both properties have three reception rooms, without including eat-in kitchens.

Recessed lighting, bay windows, large amounts of storage are attractive extras and even the airing cupboard on the top floor has a built-in hook to hold the rod for opening the attic stairs.

The houses, called Woodside and Village Side, are less than 10 minutes to Bishopstown on the Bandon roadside and the same again to the South Ring at the Forge Hill interchange.

Well worth a look, viewing is by appointment with the agents.