Kinsale homes fetching top prices

Upriver of Kinsale town is Ballywilliam House, previously owned by singer Tori Amos. It’s now sale agreed at its €2m AMV. 

Kinsale's property scene gets headlines because it gets huge prices on a pretty regular basis, with location/address ensuring premium prices.

But, fortunately for those on less than stellar salaries, or with masses of cash already in the bank there is a mid and lower market also.

It just happens to be costlier at the lower and mid-levels than most other locations, however: think €200k for a wreck, or a site, and if you want a site with even water glimpse, well, get out your multiplication tables….there’s an Ardbrack site currently under offer with a €1.5m price tag.

Got €250k to spend? Sorry, it won’t go far.

Websites currently show just nine listings with a Kinsale address at or under this sum: five of them are sites, three are not really near Kinsale at all, one is a stone ruin on a postage size site. Two can be lived in pretty much as they come, but they are pretty small or ‘cosy’.

And, the Price Register shows just five transaction since the start of this year under €250,000.

As the Irish joke translates about the person lost and looking for directions being unhelpfully advised “Well, I wouldn’t start from here.” 

It’s as bad, or worse, for affordable rentals, with local offspring and tourism workers hardest hit when it comes to getting a roof over their heads, to own or to pay rack-rent on.

In the starter to mid-market, the Price Register shows 17 transactions in the very broad €300,000 to €500,000 price range so far this year: stretch the budget to €700,00 and it turns up 28 concluded sales since January 1: Kinsale really is a market onto itself.

The chatter is, as ever, about the upper end in a town that has become accustomed to high-spenders and the ‘money no object’ brigade whether coming in by superyacht, or helicoptering into the Old Head Golf Course and looking to splash some cash on Irish bricks and mortar, having fallen for Kinsale’s honeyed and monied aura.

Raffeen House in Scilly made €4.75 million in a rapid sale, and is one of Kinsale’s strongest prices to date.

Having sold a few Kinsale/Sandycove homes at excess €1m in the past year, including the contemporary Avalon near the sea at Sandycove for €2.35m, high-end homes specialist Roseanne De Vere Hunt of Sherry Fitz’s national Country Homes and Estates wing says: “Again this year, Kinsale and its surrounding hinterlands has had a very strong year to date. The lifestyle and beauty that is offered by the area attracts buyers looking for a high quality of life and a tremendous balance.” 

“Given the area’s beauty and peacefulness combined with its offering of good schools, various water sport clubs and other sporting activities, together with great restaurants and facilities, it's easy to see why the area is so popular.

“The ease of access to Cork city and airport within 30 minutes, gives buyers an amazing opportunity for a work life balance like no other,” she outlines of Kinsale’s competitive charms. “Recent sales have proven that US buyers, together with ex-pats from around the world, along with Irish buyers love this area and are happy to pay a premium to live there."

Familiar to TV watchers from her occasional presenting role on TV’s Selling Ireland’s Dream Homes, Ms De Vere Hunt revealed that in the year to date, 67% of her buyers in the Kinsale market were from the US.

She adds: “Many had Irish heritage, others were drawn to the stunning town and area surrounding Kinsale.” 

Pointedly, she revealed that their website is busiest at night “where US buyers are making contact. The strength of the US dollar against the Euro, makes Ireland such an attractive option for buyers.” 

She notes: “Our property taxes and stamp duty rates are relatively low in comparison to other countries. Being the last English speaking country, as English as our first language within the EU again makes Ireland very attractive to US buyers.”

Money talks 

The past 18 months has seen exceptional prices paid in Kinsale’s highest end of the market.

There was the €4.8m paid for Raffeen House, a Georgian waterfront home at Scilly, bought by a US purchaser. 200 meters away on a higher Scilly setting, a modern home Ocean Breeze sold this year to US-based Nike heir Travis Knight and his Irish wife for an as-yet unconfimed €4.5m-€5 million, yet to appear on the Price Register, while over on the top of Compass Hill it was an Irish buyer who got Constantia Farm for over €5 million and who then added to his 27 acres there with a few more zoned acres for a combined c €10m investment in Kinsale.

Along with other local Kinsale estate agents, Lisney Sotheby’s International Realty’s Trevor O’Sullivan said there’d been a very busy first half to 2022 and forecasts “that’s expected to continue into the prime summer months.” “We have had a lot of overseas interest from primarily UK and American buyers looking for coastal properties in the Kinsale and surrounding areas,” said Mr O’Sullivan, instancing recently agreed sales as the period Ballywilliam House, upriver of Kinsale (the former home of singer Tori Amos) at its €2m asking price, to an overseas buyer,” said Mr O’Sullivan.

He added that “within a few hundred metres of Ballywilliam we have sold a property River House, Kinsale for over the asking price.” A bungalow on 0.6 acres with its own pier and direct water access on the river Bandon, River House had carried a €950,000 AMV when launched in spring and has gone well over €1m.