House of the week: Six bedroom gem in Cork’s Lindville

Blackrock, Cork €625,000

MUNSTER rugby captain, 25-year-old Peter O’Mahony, is reportedly close to buying a fine, period home for €600,000, near Cork City’s Blackrock village. And now, also in the same €600k-plus price bracket is another home offer in the same, genteel suburban area, No 54 Lindville.

The Lindville estate is only an exercising, hilly stroll away from the top rugby player’s alma mater club of Cork Constitution, in Ballintemple.

New to market here this month is No 54, a three-storey, six-bed home in the development of 60-plus, Victorian-styled houses in the former Lindville hospital grounds, off the main Blackrock Road as its passes through Ballintemple and the just-re-opened Venue bar.

Lofty No 54 is one of the B-type of detacheds within the Roderick Hogan Architects-designed Lindville scheme, picking up on Victorian-era design features of adjacent period homes along the main Blackrock Road, and it is priced at €625,000 with Malcolm Tyrrell and Brian Olden, of Cohalan Downing.

Previous, and relatively recent, resales within Lindville were €515,000 and €625,000 in 2013, and €613,000 in 2010. One house is registered as having sold for €950,000 in 2011, but at this is likely to have been an asset transfer rather than a third-party sale, sources say.

Now, No 54 comes along when demand is as high as confidence, in an apparently rapidly recovering market — witness several, strong, local Blackrock results in excess of asking prices after competitive bidding, and with Munster caption O’Mahony (whose ‘sale agreed’ is the other side of Blackrock village) just one example of the state of play. Other strong results include Madore, a Georgian home on the main strip by Lindville, with a very long back garden, and which reportedly sailed past its €640k price with Sherry FitzGerald (it featured over two pages in this publication in May) to make closer to €700,000. And, in nearby Janeville, a sizeable, circa 40-year-old, 2,500 sq ft family home fell short of its €720k price, turning up on the register at €685,000, via agent Tim Sullivan.

Now, this latest arrival to a market proven to be strong in the €550-750k buying league is on a corner site, within Lindville, and has, according to the auctioneers Cohalan Downing, a number of expensive extras put in by the vendors.

The kitchen has polished, parquet flooring, with inset mat by the sink, has a raft of upmarket, German-fitted units with granite tops, a Liebherr fridge, Brittania range double oven, island/breakfast bar, and a few steps down to alinked family area.

The kitchen also connects to the main living room, with bay window in front, and this room is 24’ by almost 14’, with marble fireplace.

The rear family space off the kitchen has a second, simpler fireplace in brick and this room opens to a rear-decked patio via French doors; there’s further garden access via a utility room. Up on the first floor are three bedrooms, one with two sets of walk-in wardrobes, plus a main family bathroom with twin sinks, bath and separate shower.

These B-type houses are tall, and the top floor of No 54 fits in three more bedrooms: one’s a good double with en-suite, the other two are circa 10’ by 8’, and there’s eaves storage.

Mature avenue trees within the grounds of the old Lindville hospital have been retained, there’s a bus stop outside on the main Blackrock Road, and local shops and services, including schools, butcher, post office and bars. The city centre is a stroll along, as is the Atlantic Pond, Marina and the GAA’s Pairc Uí Chaoimh, which is due a major overhaul soon, subject to this week’s Bord Pleanála scrutiny.

VERDICT: Coming to market with excellent timing, given the current dearth of very good trading-up stock in the older suburbs.