China girl sews up sale near Singers Corner

An un-named Chinese investor has stitched up a deal on Fitzgerald House, an 11,600 sq ft property facing Cork city’s English Market and adjacent to the dramatically just-painted up Singers Corner, where - coincidentally - a commissioned mural by artist Johnny Bugler depicts a floral Chinese pattern, as seen on old Singer sewing machines.

Fitzgerald House was bought for 30% over its guide, making €1.225 million, well above the €900,000 asking price via agents Downing Commercial, jointly with JLL, after five parties attended a private auction in recent days.

The sale was given added impetus by the imminent scrapping at year’s end of the CGT exemption for investments held for seven years and which has driven an end-of year surge in sales, including pending DTZ bank investment sales in Tralee, Waterford and Kinsale, as well as land sales such as Cork’s Cleve Hill, now understood to be making well over €3m in continuing discussions.