Lake Lawn €525k home may float a buyer's boat

Already extended, No 2 Lake Lawn in Cork has full planning for a further extension

Lough and key location: St Canice's, or no  2 Lake Lawn, off Cork's Well Road is guided at €525,000 by Garry O'Donnell of ERA Downey McCarthy

Douglas Cork
€525,000
Size	112 sq m (1,200 sq ft)
Bedrooms	3
Bathrooms	3
BER	D1

“ON a good morning’s viewing, this could sell immediately”, says estate agent Garry O’Donnell of No 2 Lake Lawn, an already extended 1950s three-bed suburban Cork semi-d, with a recent grant of planning for a further part-single, part-double storey extension if next occupants want to go with it.

Rear view of St Canice's,  Lake Lawn

Or they could just take it as it is, and enjoy it.

“It’s a ‘home for life’,” says the ERA Downey McCarthy agent who has pinned a €525,000 AMV to the 112 sq m/1,200 sq ft home St Canice’s, aka 2 Lake Lawn, just off Cork city’s Well Road.

Front elevation with porthole window

It may indeed be ‘home for life’ for its 2024 purchasers, but it transpired not to be so for the young family who bought it back in 2018, for a recorded €470,000 according to the Price Register.

Bright and airy

Already selling up, they’ve since bought closer to family roots, schools and sports club affiliations towards nearby Blackrock, according to Mr O’Donnell, so they did little here at No 2, bar freshen up the decor to its current spotless and bright looking levels, with its existing high-ceilinged sun room/living room extension.

They also secured full planning then in 2022 for a side extension of up to two levels and to remove the adjacent detached garage (they got the extension planning via design and build Cork firm Triton.)

They loved what they bought: the location; the neighbours; the aspect to the back; which is south-west and the house itself, "but they got the chance to buy again closer to Blackrock, within walking distance of the GAA club and it made their lives easier,” Mr O'Donnell  comments.

He had first viewings booked in for Wednesday of this week and expects it to move on very quickly, given its overall condition, the setting just off the Well Road and near Douglas village, its schools and the aspect: in fact, all the things that endeared it to his vendors back in 2018 when they jumped for it.

Covered deck

Right now it has a sun room extended across the back of the house, with high ceilinged area and glazed apex gable, off the former dining room/rear reception and existing compact kitchen. This also links to a covered sit-out area with sheltered deck, all overlooking a mature back garden/play area, with the outline of the older Hettyfield House and its large private grounds with tennis court over the back boundary.

Established neighbourhood with some newer, larger arrivals

A few doors up along Lake Lawn,several neighbours have done sizeable extensions to their own similar era semi-ds already, in a mix of styles and done in different time periods: the enlarged No 6 shows on the Price Register in 2021 at €680,000.

No 6 Lake Lawn featured in these pages in 2021, during a lockdown and was a four-bed of 198 sq m (2,130 sq ft), which had had a AMV of €595,000, and had huge viewing inquiries, with the agent at that time saying the first dozen inquiries on it were all prepared to pay the €595k AMV, or more.

Douglas and Ballinlough on the doorstep

Now, that was for a home with almost 1,000 sq ft more than No 2 as it currently stands (the planning granted allows it also to extend to a similar c 198 sq ft,)so there isn’t a direct correlation at all, bar to say there are buyers looking at this location with good sums to spend.

4 Greenbanks made €1.47m

More have far larger sums too, though, for larger and detached homes, such as is the cachet and convenience of the Well Road/Douglas/Ballinlough hinterland. Witness the €1.47m paid last year for 4 Greenbanks, and another brand-new build recently 'sale agreed/ over the €1m mark at the Douglas end of the Well Road.

Then, there’s a new homes scheme at Hettyfield Gardens within a few hundred yards from Lake Lawn as the garden birds fly,  with seven of nine units sale agreed of four-bed semis and three detacheds at prices from €810,000 to €1m, with the last two detached houses due for release (via Savills) shortly.

Location is a few doors up from the Well Road

St Canice’s/No 2 Lake Lawn at present is just a three-bed with quite standard first floor layout of two double bedrooms (with built-ins) plus a single and a main family bathroom with shower over the bath.

At ground is a front reception with a white marble fireplace, a guest WC, rear dining room/second reception with access to the sunroom with Veluxes in its vaulted ceiling to bring light deeper in the back room, clean and functional kitchen and the covered decked area off it has a skylight and a side glazed boundary wall.

With its distinctive Lake Lawn front façade feature of a porthole window to the hall and side entrance, No 2’s BER is a D1, and there’s gas central heating, and off street parking plus a detached garage for storage right now, plus neatly kept gardens.

ERA’s Garry O’Donnell says he’s expecting a cross-section of interest include from first-time buyers who may choose to extend it in a few years time, either using the existing planning grant (which envisages a new main suite fourth bedroom to the extended right hand side with dressing ropm and private bathroom) or going for a variation now that there’s a broad acceptance for building-on; he may also get trading down interest from those for whom three bedrooms is more than plenty, or who may even reduce it to a two bed with adaptation to walk in ‘robe/en suite.

VERDICT: Lake Lawn really is a ‘location for life’ …..it just wasn’t so for its vendors who’ve moved on to other options instead.