Trading up: Donoughmore, Cork €300,000

Good insulation standards, and a wood-burning stove, help to give a decent B3 BER score to this 15-year-old rural dormer home, near Donoughmore, 20 minutes north of Cork city.

It’s guided at €300,000 by auctioneer Robert O’Keeffe of Irish and European, who’s had it for sale for several months and is open to offers as it’s showing well now in summer months (although offers around €260,000 have been rejected by the vendors.)

It weighs in at 2,200 sq ft, on a half-acre well-landscaped and shrubbed site with mature boundaries, plus theres a large detached garage, and ticks lots of boxes for families looking for space.