Trading up: Orchard Road, Cork €470,000

Sq m: 149 (1,600 sq ft)

Modern home locations don’t get much better in Cork suburban terms than that of The Grove.

Set at the lower end of Orchard Road, between Victoria Cross and Dennehy’s Cross, it’s within a short walk of UCC, hospitals like the Bon Secours, CUH and the Wilton Shopping Centre, whilst the city centre and CIT are about an equal, longer walk away.

With just 15 homes in a cul de sac along Orchard Road, The Grove was developed around the mid 1990s by O’Brien and O’Flynn, after they acquired the old Brookfield House and developed tourist and student accommodation there, plus a small hotel and leisure centre. They’re four-beds and about 1,600 sq ft, modest in today’s terms and if they’d been built a few years later, would have been mini-mansions, gated and catering for Celtic Tigers and consultants.

The last re-sale here was in 2012, for c €440,000 (a bigger five-bed 2,500 sq ft detached on Orchard Road made €680k last year) and now agent Sam Kingston guides No 2 The Grove at €470,000.

No 2’s in very good overall order, and has a decent west-facing back garden with maturing cherry blossom tree and useful steel shed.

VERDICT: An ace location, and primed for a large sunny rear extension if a buyer so wishes.