Skip down to Skibb, price is right

CHEAPER by a mile, and up a new by-pass road under construction as well, the Skibbereen west Cork houses at Chapel Court are being launched next weekend, with prices to tempt buyers to switch from renting.

Developers Willowford (they’re the company with plans to move Bantry Blues GAA club to a new site as well) are to build 54 new homes at this elevated site above the market town, but the first 22 will carry sales for the next year or so.

Completed homes, including a showhouse, go on display next weekend, and as prices start from €190,000 for a three-bed mid-terraced town house of 1,048 sq ft, keen interest is expected, says Pater Skuse of selling agents Cahalane Skuse, acting jointly with Pat Maguire Properties.

End-terraced houses, effectively semis, will be sold at €195,000, and that’s well under prices of comparable new stock in Skibbereen at the moment. “Houses like this would have been priced in the mid €200,000s last year,” says Mr Skuse.

He and estate agency partner Niall Cahalane say that average rents in Skibbereen for a three-bed semi currently stand at €700 per month, and they say a first time buyer can get a 92% mortgage on a €190,000 home (€174,800) at a net monthly cost of €695.

An AIB representative will be at the showhouses next weekend in the afternoons.

Standard semis will be sold around €205,000, he added. Four-bed semis of 1,385 sq ft will also be built later, but aren’t yet priced and the finished houses are scoring a B3 BER energy efficiency rating.

The development company, which includes Niall Cahalane as a director, has built up to 200 new homes in west Cork locations in the past decade, and also has ambitious (but just recently scaled-back) plans for a retail and mixed-use development in Bantry, which involves the provision of new facilities for local GAA club, Bantry Blues.