Limeworth shows its value with strong sales

VALUING houses to sell in the property market over the past year or so has been hard – but there’s little such challenge at 31, Limeworth, west of Cork city.

A new market arrival for 2010 is this new four-bed detached home with almost 3,000 sq ft of space thanks to extra attic rooms, and it is price-guided at €750,000 by Norma Healy of Sherry FitzGerald.

She’s pretty confident of the valuation, having sold two other Limeworth houses in the past few months, with one sale closed and another on the point of closing, at priced very close indeed to this sort of sum.

This is a buy for those who those who, similarly, don’t want to let the grass grow under their feet in this new year – because the property has no lawn.

No 31’s site is fairly small, so rather than factor in a pocket-size piece of greenery, the developer/land-owner Denis O’Driscoll opted for hard surfaces, with sandstone flags behind, and put in brick paviours in front.

Location is just off the Ballincollig bypass at Carriganarra, so accessibility is a key selling point, and the last two recent Limeworth sales have been to relocators, families moving to the Cork area and not finding much new housing stock to tempt them anywhere around the city, says the auctioneer.

All of the Limeworth houses are large, there are variations on a theme, but almost all are uniformly well-finished and specified. There’s about 36 in all, on nine acres of land which previously was a fruit farm, and at market peak similar sized homes here went for sale at €1m to €1.2m.

Rooms here include two receptions plus a kitchen/dining/conservatory, with quality appliances already in situ in the solid wood and granite-topped units.

Floors are finished in good tiles or timber, there’s an alarm and surround sound, and overhead three of the four oak-floored bedrooms are en suite. There are additional attic rooms, plus a further bathroom at this uppermost level.

The house just needs furnishings and curtains to complete, and maybe lots of containers for planting up for a blaze of seasonal colour. No 31 has a block-built shed, which a buyer might use for raising seedlings – using the time saved from not having a lawn to cut.