Slender apartments in city centre earns €67k a year in rent

One of the more unusual-looking self-contained apartment developments in the heart of Cork City, developed in 1998, has been put up for sale as one lot.

With seven fully occupied apartments in two slivers of blocks, it is earning €67,000 pa and is probably under-rented.

It’s guided at tempting bite size to a range of investors, at €800,000 via Cohalan Downing, who indicate that at this sort of sum it offers a 8% return to its new owners.

A pre-Christmas offer, and likely to sell very quickly given the sub-€1m guide (it is already under offer at the €800,000 asking price) are Nos 1-4 Duncan House and Nos 5-7 Quaker House, on Grattan St, near Washington St and North Main St.

A two-block scheme, it was developed in the late 1990s by interior designer Odette Kearney, who worked with the period-era Duncan House on Grattan St, and who matched it in a more modern facsimile, in a similar tall and slender finger of a building behind.

Six of the seven are accessed off a central secure courtyard, with the largest unit being a 925 sq ft (86 sq m) two-bed duplex on the top of Quaker House, the rear building overlooking the cleared site of the former Munster Furniture store on North Main St.

This building’s two lower apartments are each one-beds, of 425 sq ft.

The front building, Duncan House, has one 400 sq ft ground floor apartment accessed directly from Grattan St, with three slightly larger 430 sq ft one-beds overhead.

Overall condition is good, but the units now need some updating.

Estate agent Jackie Cohalan says the sale, for the original owner, “is a unique opportunity to acquire a self-contained, purpose built, apartment block comprising of six one-bedroom apartments and one two-bedroom duplex, in a prominent position on Grattan St, close to the Courthouse, Mercy Hospital, and UCC, and to the city centre.”

Meanwhile, the same agent reports steady interest, but from more niche buyers, in a nearby offer of two historic, and listed, buildings at 2 and 3 Fenns Quay, Sheares St by the Courthouse and Washington Street.

Here, two of the five carefully conserved 18th-century terraced building on Fenns Quay carry a guide of €585,000, and have a rental income of €65,600.

Each has roughly 1,300 sq ft of residential accommodation, plus a 470 sq ft rear one-bed unit and 350 sq ft retail unit to the street.

“There is very strong viewings at both, but they have an appeal to very different type of buyers,” advises Ms Cohalan.

• Meanwhile, as self-contained and multi-unit residential investments continue to come under heavy demand, now expected to get under firm offer in another part of Cork city is Langford Hall, by the corner of Douglas Street.

Langford Hall comprises 13 high-end apartments, designed by O’Riordan Staehli and built in the mid 2000s and all fully occupied.

At a guide price of €2.25 million sought by Eoin Ryan of DTZ Sherry FitzGerald, it will show a 6.2% net yield.

DETAILS: Cohalan Downing 021-4277717, DTZ 021-4275454