Doctors and doctorates shore up home values on Cork's College Road

The €895k Denson on Cork’s College Road is in good company in high-end price bracket of Cork's house market, writes Tommy Barker

Cork's College Road and Bon Secours hinterland sees high home values in niches

College Road, Cork City
€895,000
Size	208 sq m (2,280 sq ft)
Bedrooms	4
Bathrooms	4
BER	B1

THERE is some good, high-end company pricewise in the vicinity of Denson, a c 10-year-old one-off detached build on Cork City’s College Road, and which has been rented out as a high-quality home to medics and their families over the past decade by its owner  - who has now decided to sell it on.

Denson, faces Orchard Road on the College Road

As Denson comes for sale with a €895,000 AMV cited by Johnny O’Flynn of Sherry FitzGerald, it follows fairly hot on the heels of the 2023 sale of the do-er up across the road on the College Road junction with Orchard Road, Mapleholme (both in drone pic, here), sold by the same agent for €1.162m according to the Price Register. And, that’s before Mapleholme gets any further invested in....

Mapleholme, centre of pic, with Denson part-obscured by the trees above

Even higher prices have been paid in the same vicinity, near UCC and the Bon Secours, in many cases paid by medics, but not exclusively so.

Mapleholme, at the corner of College Road and Orchard Road

The highest recent price in the hinterland for a walk-in order home was the €1.585m paid by a non-medic for a house at  Millfield, a superb architect-designed contemporary one-off, which had previously sold for an even €1.5m in 2020, and that most recent family of buyers was trading up from another house in Lima Lawn, a semi-d they’d entirely rebuilt and upgraded only a few years ago.

 Millfield resale made €1.585m

Also hitting a high price threshold was another modern off-College Road build Linaro House, fetching €1.32m in 2020, while around the corner from Denson was the sale last year of Wyldwood, on St Frances Avenue for €1.255m.

Meanwhile, No 8 Robin Hill Avenue along College Road sold twice too in the past five years, in 2020 for €1.1m and again just two years later for €1.212m.

Old San Paula site on Orchard Road is now home to Ecklinville with nine new-builds just completed

Across from Denson, down the settled Orchard Road, the architect-designed San Paula which sold for €1.9m in 2018 has since been demolished and has been replaced by nine detached new-builds, gone officially to market (via Savills) in 2023, and with three of those quality, brick-finished homes now reserved.

So, there’s money on tap in and around Cork City’s convenient College Road and Model Farm Road (more than 20 recorded €1m-plus sales in this latter address, although several were as development sites): Where will Denson end up?

Denson interior

It might not hit ‘the big note’, but it will go well, that’s for sure, and if it is price limited it’s probably going to be because its site — while deep enough for a back garden and off-street parking in front — is quite slender.

It’s a tall enough home, and deep, with stepped back sections on its front and rear facades, with two bedrooms apiece on each of its two upper floors and four bedrooms in all.

The middle level has its two bedrooms en suite, and it also holds the main family bathroom, with separate bath and shower which serves those whose sleeping quarters are up on the top floor (those attic level rooms have Veluxes and gable windows, with some head height restrictions to the sides.)

At ground level, left of the porcelain-tiled hall via a wide ope with part-glazed double oak doors is the main sitting room with bay window, coved ceiling, and marble fireplace with gas insert.

Behind, is a family/dining/kitchen, L-shaped, with porcelain tiled floor and painted units topped with black granite, and there’s speakers for sound, brushed chrome sockets and switches and 5amp sockets for specialist controlled lighting.

It has been cleared of furniture and redecorated prior to its 2024 sale offer, so interested buyers will have to see past its ‘clean slate’ presentation and get to decide how they want to position its decor.

Garden

Right next door a superficially similar but larger home is being finished out in construction, unrelated to the now well-rooted Denson which has side access points to its own back garden, which has a sliding electric gate for access to College Road, with double yellow lines along both sides of the road here, just west of UCC and the Bon Secours.

VERDICT: The location will guarantee interest and a solid sale.