House of the Week: A rare sale of a Tramore Lawn fully detached home, for €595,000

Kinvara is on its first-ever market outing since it was built over 60 years ago

Fri, 26 Nov, 2021 - 14:00

Tommy Barker reports

Douglas, Cork
€595,000
Size	197sq m (2,122 sq ft)
Bedrooms	4
Bathrooms	2
BER	D2

IN the 10 or so years that the so-useful Irish Property Price Register has been running, almost every house in Cork’s Tramore Lawn, Douglas, to show up on it has sold in the broad, €400ks bracket: All bar two.

The earliest showing is for back in 2011, for a four-bed semi-d called ‘Sidmar’ which fetched just €320,000, a price point which was nearly more reflective of the property market’s nadir than that property’s overall appeal as it was ‘tired,’ but had lots of potential

One Tramore Lawn house, No 18, Glencora, made €565,000 in 2017, so clearly things were well on the up and up (for vendors, if not purchasers) by then. But, since then, for whatever reason, the five subsequent resales were all in the €450,000-€480,000 price band.

Great aspect for Kinvara's rear sun room

Now, No 37, also called Kinvara, carries a €595,000 AMV on its first-ever market outing since it was built over 60 years ago — and is certain to leave all of its preceding sale neighbours in its wake, price-wise.

The reason? Simple, really, in this long row of solid four-bedroomed semi-detacheds, there’s only a tiny handful of fully detacheds in Tramore Lawn. They almost never come for sale, and No 37, Kinvara is one of these exalted few.

Plus, it’s on a larger site, effectively a corner one, at the very top of Tramore Lawn where this linear estate runs up from the South Douglas Road, less than half a mile from the super-serviced village, to meet the main Douglas Road.

Kinvara is effectively the first Tramore Lawn house encountered off the Douglas Road as its corner neighbour is entirely different, it’s a renovated smallish lodge building to a departed period home. Today, that lodge is notable for its smart upgrade, and for the rather strident orange colour the lodge has been painted.

The lodge, Kinvara and a few more Tramore Lawn homes have their east-facing back gardens running along blocking out the nearby Dunmahon Maxol Service Station, while the estate which was largely developed by builder Denis J McCarthy is itself notable for the height of its front boundary walls, giving additional privacy to the c 40 homes in all.

The selling agent for the one-off No 37 Tramore Lawn/Kinvara is Brian Olden of Cohalan Downing, and he says both the house and the location are going to impress.

He’s already got recent selling form along Tramore Road, having sold a very original order four-bed semi-d No 7 last year. No 7 was 1,220 sq ft, G BER rated and while it carried a €395,000 AMV, the Property Price Register shows it made €452,500 after strong bidding, yet needing lots more extra spending.

c 1,200 sq ft four-bed semi-d 7 Tramore Lawn made €452,500

Kinvara, in contrast, is much larger, though the quoted 2,100 sq ft does include the attached double garage by the entry point, so it’s more like 1,800 sq ft of immediately usable residential space. Might this garage area in time yield a two-storey extension?

Kinvara was a quite- sizeable family home for most of its days, though, as there’s a lovely 16’ by 16’ double aspect (east and south) reception room to the back (pictured, right), super-bright, with fireplace and garden access, likely to have been added in the 1960s or ‘70s, and that’s in addition to two other reception rooms.

Across on the other side, there’s a very decent back hall off the double garage for utility purposes with a ‘dog-leg’ behind with guest WC.

Overall, there’s a good deal more floor area at ground than there is above, but the first floor has four decent bedrooms, plus family bathroom, and the roof looks like it could take a nice attic conversion in time.

No 37’s overall condition is good, but it is older in style certainly, original features include the oak herringbone floor in the hall, whilst new owners will make their own updates, and the BER is a decent enough D1.

There’s great private garden space too with this pleasant home, likely to go on to serve another family for decades.

Tramore Lawn itself shows the bulk of semi-ds previously sold have been added to and upgraded behind their high boundary walls by now. There’s also been marked upgrades to other houses in nearby popular estates and on the Douglas Road, including one Sigma Homes new build going up on a site when had lain idle for well over a decade as the area reinvents itself with a new geneartion.

VERDICT: Kinvara’s already ahead of the game: There will be a bidding fight for this one.