Makeover lifts suburban home several rungs up property ladder
It wasn’t actually done up to ‘flip,’ and in fact those who bought houses last year hoping to do a ‘Property Ladder’ job on them and sell on are now no longer assured of a profit, given the Irish property market’s robust contraction and rising interest rates.
The duo who did up Glen House, Justin Canty and Rob Power, have already done a number of Cork houses for the corporate let market, in places like Cobh, Crosshaven and the city, and that was envisaged to be the fate of Glen House.
The corporate let market has contracted too, though (the Amgen development going on hold has deflated it quite a bit), so now they’ve decided to offer it to the market to see who’ll take up the chance to live in a fully-made over home of 3,300 sq ft, in the Hettyfield part of Douglas, an impregnable location.
Our editorial this time last year, when Glen House came up for sale for its medic owner read “there’s more than a handful of buyers with this sort of money (€2 million) to spend, bidding against one another for the limited stock of secondhand homes. Many are prepared to buy at even the €1.5 million mark, knock down or largely remodel, swallow the pain of 9% stamp duty and work around a €2 million budget.”
Still true. Since that was written, at least one other house in this Hettyfield hinterland has been sold for about €1.7 million, as a blank canvas for its new owner, who will now start to plan, spend, and build.
That work has been done here at Glen House, though, with a sensible new sun room/orangerie addition to the front of this previously extended, south-facing 1950s house.
It now, in effect, opens up four room-sized sections, around a central stout pillar or wall, all flooded with light, and which can be used as one great open-plan space, or broken up and divided into themes simply with furniture or screens.
Estate agent Dennis Guerin of Frank V. Murphy and Co seeks offers over the €2 million mark now, in an admittedly quieter market, but at least buyers can see the impact of a spend of several hundred thousand euros in renovations and modernising.
New occupants will have nothing to do but move in their existing furniture, or buy afresh.
The essentials, and more, are all here: big, bright open spaces, quieter rear drawing room, big kitchen, well finished out with Farrow and Ball painted hard-wood units, and there’s a large utility room which is in effect almost a second kitchen down to a US-style fridge.
There are four first floor bedrooms, two with en suites and a very good master bedroom en suite with walk-in wardrobes, there’s a smashing main bathroom (all sanitary ware is Villeroy and Boch, showers are double size and pumped) and the attic level, once home to two small bedrooms and wash space, now houses a bright open multi-purpose room of 25’ by 11,’ suitable for work or play.
It is a real seller. Just at what price will be the question.
