Trading up: Beaumont, Cork, €295,000

“The phone hasn’t stopped ringing in the last two days,” estate agent Tom Woodward says, in the week he launches Glenhelm or No 53 Beaumont Drive, to market in Cork city’s settled southside suburbs.

Size: 114sq m (1,227sq ft) 

Bathrooms: 1 

Bedrooms: 3 

BER: G

A total do-er upper, and not lived in for years, it’s a semi-d with three bedrooms in a location that will ensure droves of viewers and dreamers, and a good clutch of bidders too.

Second-next door to the Spar shop and public park on Beaumont Drive off the Blackrock Road near Ballintemple (see House of the Week for an area profile), No 53 is a mid 1900s build where time has taken its toll, both inside and outside.

Internally, it’s been largely untouched for aeons, and has several original old tiled fireplaces, while outside the garden has just about been tamed enough to walk viewers down the long back garden path — literally, not metaphorically.

Up to very recently in a jungle state, it took a man with slash hook four days of labour to clear the very long, south/west aspected back garden for viewings, admit Woodwards, who’ll follow Thursday’s open viewing with another open session on Monday, at 1pm.

Key points are location, garden aspect, proximity to public park, old quarry, sports amenities, and schools.

VERDICT: Be brave.