Starter home: Douglas Road, Cork €250,000

Trish Dromey says that renovating this property on the Douglas Road might be too much effort and starting again from scratch is likely.

Sq m 92 (1,000 sq ft)

Bedrooms: 3

Bathrooms: 1

BER: Pending

Hiding behind a grey windowless back wall on the Douglas Road, is a very pretty pink cottage with an almost secret garden.

Alverna looks too pretty to knock but selling agents Woodward Auctioneers expect this will most likely be its fate because upgrading the 1870s built cottage would be a major undertaking.

But its location - one hundred metres from the Cross Douglas Road, just one and a half kilometres from the city centre – as well as its 335 sq metre site, has been causing phones to hop at Woodwards.

Alverna is one of a small number of properties that face away from the Douglas Road, rather than towards it. There reason for this is that it predates the road, and was originally a market garden property called Strawberry Cottage.

Accommodation in the dormer cottage includes a living room with a timber fireplace, a tiled dining room and a kitchenette with a sink, presses and a terrazzo floor.

There’s also a ground floor bathroom with a cast iron bath while upstairs there are three bedrooms overlooking the garden. Fitted with electric storage heaters and in recent years with double glazed windows, Alverna is expected to secure a G BER Rating.

Averno has a pretty south facing garden with lawns, a carport and a crazy paved pathway as well as beds with a profusion of flowers, shrubs and bushes.

VERDICT: likely to be replaced with a new build, as a lodge across the road also got knocked in the past month.