Cork’s property market recovery due to foreign input

Cork’s recovering property market is being driven by international forces: FDI new arrivals, the expansion of presences like Apple and EMC, and by foreign investors.

That was the message given to the recent CIF builders’ AGM by surveyor and estate agent, Frank Ryan, of DTZ Sherry FitzGerald, who described the patchy recovery and still abnormal market as “a five-cylinder economic engine, that is operating inefficiently on two cylinders.”

While the ‘pillar banks’ are still selective in lending, and transaction levels are both low and slow, confidence has recovered since 2012. “Accordingly, the market is exhibiting higher levels of activity — though primarily only for quality property — both in locational and physical terms. Equally, this increase in activity is primarily represented in the urban ‘residential’ market — and urban ‘offices’ for new FDI employers, locating to Cork,” said Mr Ryan.