Hi-spec Cork city Oasis with a wonderwall is heading off the price charts

This three-storey, four-bed mid-terraced home on Lower Glanmire Road is renovated with style and panache, says Tommy Barker 

118 Lower Glanmire Road, Cork, a fully renovated terraced house with four-bedrooms and three bathrooms was priced at €295,000, then €330,000 and is under offer now at  €380,000

Lower Glanmire Rd,  Co Cork
€330,000 asking, offer of €380k
Size	126 sq m
Bedrooms	4
Bathrooms	3
BER	B1

Smartened up exterior of 118 Lower Glanmire Road gives little away as to what's inside and out the back

A fully done up terraced city house, done with style and panache and a good build spec, it initially came to market in late April, set to launch at about twice the sum which it last transacted at, just six years ago.

But, it has already soared way, way, past it, to the credit of the owners who saw the ‘potential uplift’ here when they took it on in 2015. They picked it up back then for €147,000, situated as it was/is on the cusp of Cork’s rapidly-becoming-reality dockland renewal hinterland. 

Dusky beauty at 118

Websites initially show it as having been floated this time around, late April by auctioneers firm Keane Mahony Smith at €295,000.

But, within days it was revised and upped to an asking price of €330,000, with the Myhome site currently showing the €35k swift AMV uptick.

That, though, was only the start of it. By midweek, after the May bank holiday weekend,  KMS agent Darragh Taaffe saw bids rise to €380,000. Now, he says he won’t be surprised given the sheer weight of interest in it (and, bids to match driven by a very good virtual tour video) if it goes closer to €400,000.

At that, the vendors will be doing very well indeed, more than recouping what they spent post ’15 purchase, transforming it comfort-wise, increasing energy efficiency, and bringing it from an E1 BER to a B1.

Do a Google search on 118 Lower Glanmire Road right now and not only can you see it in all of its current, shimmering glory but you can see what it looked like back in 2015 (its last market outing, when it had a €150,000 AMV, with dormer windows in place, dated and tired internally, but definitely liveable, and it made a record €147,000.

Rear view

While it’s pretty much still the same size, there the similarities stop. The owners worked on it thoroughly, with energy upgrade retrofits, insulating walls with drylining, doing ceilings and floors also. They changed windows for triple glazed ones, and put in air-to-water heating, with high-efficiency aluminium rads, able to be controlled and monitored via a phone app. A security alarm also is app-controlled.

The three-storey, four-bed mid-terraced home has been rewired and replumbed. Rooms are wired up for sound at ground level as well as in the master bedroom which has two windows overlooking the Lower Glanmire Road, shunting yards of CIE’s Kent Station. Then, the south docks beckon further over the river, with new bridges promised too as part of the Government’s €350m commitment to Cork, centering on docks infrastructure to facilitate thousands of new homes.

At the 1,350 sq ft 118 Lower Glanmire Road, there are now three newly redone bathrooms in place of the original two, a ground floor guest WC, a first-floor en suite main bedroom, and top floor shower room — all with quality glazed tiling and new sanitary ware.

Internal doors are all replaced (an old stripped pine door with hooks has been quirkily mounted on a hall wall as a coat and hat stand), with quality ironmongery, and bedrooms have gloss built-ins, and internal joinery is upgraded too.

Then, after a new kitchen and island were installed, it’s all been fully redecorated, with a sheen of graphic style, and much-displayed art, prints, and photographs, while the ground floor rooms (interlinked by part-glazed double doors) have abundant shelving for book and curios.

Crowning glory? Has to be the verdant garden oasis created behind in a courtyard, enclosed by very old sandstone walls, backing up to Grattan Hill.

The patio section just past a sliding access door is paved with sandstone flags, and above it’s tiered and fully landscaped now, (the 2015 online image shows it barren!) with mood lighting and select plants highlighted, along with trellis planting on sidewalls, and there’s also a slender storage shed by the back door.

Verdant city oasis

Proud of the work they’ve done (the address ‘118 LGR’ is even depicted in tiles on the back patio wall), the occupants are, nonetheless moving on and KMS selling agent Darragh Taaffe describes it as ''a high-spec turnkey home in a most convenient location''.

The setting is one that has already gathered pace, and value, since ’15, with the new Dean Hotel open on the city side of the rail station, along with offices at Penrose Dock and at Horgans Quay/HQ: the latter is now being fitted out by serviced office providers Spaces, whilst Apple is due to land at HQ shortly, to be followed by proposed build to rent apartments.

View of Cork city from The Montenotte Hotel, Cork after an overnight snowfall on Thursday 7th January 2021.

VERDICT: No 118’s vendors not only got the timing of their 2015 purchase right, but they now are also aided in their 2021 resale by docklands development momentum… and a temporary, Covid-19 driven shortage of stock.