Trading up: BALLINLOUGH, CORK €460,000

ONE of a row of eight, two-storey homes built by Falveys in the 1980s in the quiet Knockrea Lawn estate has a personal link to the builders — it was kept by them as a family home, and only now comes up for sale, for the first time.

With a few trading-up house sales agreed in Cork’s southside locale in the past few weeks, auctioneer Dennis Guerin, of Frank V Murphy, says there’s at least limited mobility in the marketplace - once prices and vendors are realistic. He’s has just got a bit under his €625,000 guide on a detached home off the Douglas Road in Woolhara, and has other deals agreed with buyers who are ready to get off the fence.

Now, he guides another detached home, No 8 Knockrea Lawn, at the start of the Ballinlough Road, at €460,000, noting its proximity to the city centre, schools, shops etc. Just around the corner, a Bellair estate, detached four-bed needing modernising has also sold, via Sherry FitzGerald, for a €400,000-plus sum.)