This Blarney home is perfect for first-time buyers

Tommy Barker says this Tower, Blarney home is already attracting offers.

Tower, Cork €220,000 (under offer)

Size: 87 sq m (930 sq ft)

Bedrooms: 3

Bathrooms: 2

BER: C3

Best Feature: Lovely smart interior, and a good back and side garden with room to extend

HOT out of the traps, under offer in its first week on the market and already gone past its asking price is 64 Oak Mount, in the heart of Tower, near Blarney.

Built around the year 2000, in a popular development by the Leach family’s Brompton Homes, it’s been minded and improved by its vendors, and it’s getting very strong traction with first-time buyers in particular, says its selling agent Mark Gosling, of Behan Irwin Gosling.

While Tower and Blarney await further new developments, anything good that has come to market has sold smartly, with buyers coming out from Cork city (a 15 minute spin away) or Ballincollig, and many are in good and mortgageable jobs in Apple at Hollyhill, related companies, or in the IT sector in Ballincollig.

Mr Gosling loves the smart look, which he says has a fresh IKEA sort of vibe to it, and loves showing it as the vendors are house and garden proud, and have put in a handy railed rear deck, plus garden shed with power supply, while there’s views off north to wooded hills in the distance, and Tower’s amenities on the doorstep.

The garden at 64 is one of the larger in the Oak Mount development, adds, the selling agent.

No 64 is a three-bed of 930 sq ft, with one en suite bedroom and there’s concealed storage behind sliding, mirrored robes in the bedrooms too, and an easy-keep mix of laminate and wooden floors, with wood treads on the stairs contrasting with painted risers.

The front reception has a wall-mounted contemporary electric fire, and the kitchen/dining room behind has a recently fitted oak Shaker kitchen, tiled floor and garden/deck access.

Mr Gosling says No 64 has been impeccably maintained and presented and viewers so far “are all first time buyers and they all love it.”

By mid-week, it had gone €10k over its €220,000 asking price, and while it’s in walk-in condition the site has enough space to the side and back to be extended now or in the future, subject to planning.

It has a double-width front drive and walls and attic have had insulation standards upgradeded, so this 16-year old home gets a C3 BER.

VERDICT: a flyer.