Trading up: Ballinlough, Cork €370,000

The sale in the past year of a corner-set, all-done up home at Ballinlough’s Somerton Park set a recent price record, of €367,500, having initially gone to market at €295,000 in a very frenetic mid-summer 2015 market.

Size: 89 sq m (968 sq ft) 

Bathrooms: 1 

Bedrooms: 3 

BER: F

Now, another late 2016 sale offer here in a far calmer and reflective residential market hopes to go even a tad higher, as it’s priced at €370,000 by agents Sherry FitzGerald.

They say the owner-occupied three-bed semi at 12 Somerton Park has been very well kept, has a west facing back garden, and as it’s in the very heart of Ballinlough, has well-established services to hand as well as gourmet supermarket and deli, O’Driscolls (their early morning towering stacks of Saturday Irish Examiners are a particular joy to behold), within an easy strike of the city centre, Douglas and several public parks.

It hasn’t been extended, and so is just under 1,000 sq ft at present, and there’s space to the side to add on, says Florence Gabriel of Sherry FitzGerald of No 12.

Previous/recent Somerton sales have been over — and under — the €300k mark, with the super-stylish No 43 on the corner with the Ballinlough Road being the strongest seller at €367,500. It too was only about 1,000 sq ft — but was done to the highest standard.

VERDICT: Somerton, where the living is easy.