Second-ever resale at Botanika is guided at €725,000: is this to reflect jitters in the market?

Last year ended with the first-ever resale of a home in Cork’s upmarket Botanika development, No 14, after hectic bidding.

Sat, 19 Nov, 2022 - 00:00

Property Editor Tommy Barker reports

Blackrock Road, Cork City
€725,000
Size	144 sq m (1,550 sq ft)
Bedrooms	4
Bathrooms	3
BER	A2

LAST year ended with the first-ever resale of a home in Cork’s upmarket Botanika development, No 14, after hectic bidding.

18 Botanika, Cleve Hill Blackrock Road Cork city is guided at €725,000 by Brian Olden of Cohalan Downing

Now, this year is likely to end with another resale, that of No 18, just a few doors away in this ‘select’ setting, off Cork City’s Blackrock Road.

Could it ever sell as well as last year’s strongly bid transaction? Let’s see.

First, a bit of a number-crunching background.

The development just inside the Cleve Hill cul-de-sac, on the city end of the Blackrock Road, was done by developers Citidwell in 2017, unusually with all 31 houses offered for sale at the same time, not drip fed and not price-boosted in ‘stages.’

The scheme of 15 detacheds and 16 semi-ds sold swiftly with agents Cohalan Downing (60% went on launch, without a showhouse) and it immediately bedded down with pristine landscaping and branding.

Now, that firm’s Brian Olden is on the selling case in the offer of the west-facing four-bed semi-d No 18, which he prices at €725,000.

This is, understandably enough, a lot more than what No 14 was offered for just over a year ago.

Then, the similarly sized south-facing No 14 was launched at €635,000 but to the vendor’s delight had ended up making €775,000 according to the Property Price Register — which had it clocked with a few short months of hitting the market. (Both No 14 and No 18 had sold initially at a recorded €595,000 according the Register by 2019.) Notably, perhaps, the fresh-to-market, follow-on No 18 is guided at €50,000 less than what the last €775k sale (No 14) was at. It’s still €90k more that that neighbour’s start-off price before being driven much higher in bids.

Is it because the market has finally slowed price growth? There’s an on-going war to the east? An energy and cost-of-living crisis, and interest rates rising?

Possibly for some, or all of those reasons and, as ever, the market and its movers decide. It’s another sale the 30 or so other residents will be keenly watching to see how their home “investments” are faring a few years down the road.

What Mr Olden does say is that he thinks Botanika has turned out to be “the best finished-out Cork development in 20 or more years”, putting it on a par with the long-established Paddocks on Maryborough Hill and Court Cairn schemes of yore (the developers of Aylesbury in Ballintemple might quibble: See pages 10-13 this issue).

Both those coincidentally were done by Hogan Architects, even if the developers were all different.

Viewings started this week, and more are booked for next week (traders up, traders down — the lot) and while it’s almost quite traditional in decor and presentation, those who come to see will appreciate the good-sized back garden, facing east towards the private grounds of the period home, Chiplee, through mature tree screening,where an original stone boundary wall has been retained.

Finishes are part-brick with the balance in dash, or harling, with sliding sash windows, and internally, there’s a ground-floor reception room to the left, a kitchen/diner to the back with family/TV area, where there is garden access. Also on the lower level is a utility with guest WC off the hall. Above are four bedrooms (one en suite) and the main family bathroom with bath. Heating is air to water and the BER’s an A2, gratifying at time of sky-heat energy costs.

VERDICT: The row at this back-end section of Botanika is book-ended by one of the 15 detacheds — No 17, which was one of the last finished and to be sold. No 17 shows on the Property Price Register at €885,000 in 2020, the highest price in the scheme to date. Might the first resale of a Botanika detached - if offered in 2023 - hit the magic €1m mark? These things matter more than most, along Cork’s Blackrock Road.