City home with garden

BACK in 2002, this house at No 4 St Stephen’s Place, Friar Street in Cork city, went on the market at €220,000 and sold for somewhere around €260,000 – today it’s up for sale again at €270,000.

That’s a very minor capital appreciation over eight years and if you factor in stamp duty and fees, the vendor is probably coming out quits.

Which is the story of the boom, really, all that equity built up and then gone in a puff of smoke.