Victorian Cork harbour home at Glenbrook Terrace gets B2 BER

Mid-terraced home overlooking the waters of Cork harbour has price raised to €490k on relaunch

Sat, 29 Apr, 2023 - 12:45

Property Editor Tommy Barker reports Pictures John Roche

Glenbrook, Cork Harbour
€490,000
Size	141 sq m (1,522 sq ft)
Bedrooms	3
Bathrooms	3
BER	B2

IT’S just over a year since No 5 Glenbrook Terrace last went to market and when it did, it got a great reaction and strong bidding. But, unforseen circumstances meant the vendor had to temporarily withdraw the period home overlooking the waters of Cork harbour from the sale.

Now, though, all’s back on course, while the 1850s home with a highly impressive B2 energy rating has had its guide price raised up to €490,000 this time around (it was pitched at €425,000 in early 2022).

The adjustment reflects the level of bidding it was headed to back then, and viewings were to start anew this week, with agents Stuart O’Grady and Ann O’Mahony of Sherry FitzGerald.

View from the front of 5 Glenbrook Terrace

They say they expect a new cohort or crop of home-hunters this year, noting the stronger bidders of a year ago seem to have bought elsewhere in the interim, so here they go, again.

They act for a vendor who has done several renovations over past decades and who’s now trading down, having utterly turned No 5 around from how it presented when she first bought it back in 2019, with its previous inhabitant having lived there for a lifetime, to over 100 years of age.

Back then, we wrote here that these eight houses in a row tend to be homes for life, and the Price Register shows just one resale since the early 2010s, that of No 5.

When it first launched, it had a €220,000 AMV and a rock-bottom G BER and we said “it needs imagination and modernisation but that it will be wonderful when it gets the TLC it needs”.

It got that, and more, having sold for a recorded €190,000 and, with a sympathetic builder on hand, it then got an extension to the rear, a full energy efficiency overhaul, drylining, new floor with underfloor heating, PV panels for electricity, and efficient air-to-water heating.

When it got its BER cert last year, the owner was told an A3 was achievable if a stove was fitted and the chimney otherwise sealed up: that’s an option for the next occupants to consider, say Sherry FitzGerald.

More visibly, there are multiple all new finishes, including a new kitchen and bathrooms, yet all the while respecting original features, such as the door fanlight, the plasterwork and coving, the stairs’ hardwood ‘monkey tail’ final flourish, and other similar original vintage touches.

Set just above the road with a private front garden, the mid-terrace home No 5 faces over the River Lee by the Cross River ferry at Glenbrook, with commanding and engaging views from the front living room and main first floor bedroom (a near neighbour’s overhaul of another mid-terraced Victorian house made great TV last year on Great Irish House Revival) and it’s in walk-in order, all the heavy lifting done.

It’s a deep house now, post-extension, with front living room with replacement sash windows.

There’s a mid ‘ante’ room before meeting the kitchen with overhead roof light, a guest WC with glass block wall and clever used of old, repurposed shutters.

Above are three bedrooms, two of them en suite.

VERDICT: Not many Victorian harbour homes get even close to a B2 BER, and buyers will get a reduced ‘green’ mortgage rate too as a result.