Buy this one-off near Bantry for well under cost of building

€425k five-bed detached architect-designed home is 95% complete, buyer just needs some final touches

Bantry area home near Trawlebane is guided at €425,000 by agent Mark Kelly of Hodnett Forde

Bantry, West Cork
€425,000
Size	235 sq m (2,525 sq ft)
Bedrooms	5
Bathrooms	4
BER	B2

UP FOR sale and almost 95% completed though yet to be lived in, is this good-sized, well-built, architect-designed family home just inland from West Cork’s Bantry town and the Wild Atlantic Way, and offered at a lot less than the cost of construction.

Bantry hinterland views

So says selling agent Mark Kelly of Hodnett Forde, who guides this 235sq m (2,775 sq ft) five-bed, one-off home on an acre site at Trawlebane at €450,000, which although built using good local tradespeople, materials and finishes, is yet to be fully occupied.

Close to fully finished inside and outside

That price tag equates to a bit over €1,900 per/sq m, and the property, in a very advanced stage of completion, includes a detached garage.

For broad comparison, the Society of Chartered Surveyors (SCSI) puts the rebuild costs of a detached home in the southwest region at €2,775 per/sq m, which is close to €650,000 in today’s inflated cost terms for a house of this Bantry property’s scale: The SCSI quotes are for an estate detached, not a one-off, and that excludes the price of a garage, listed as €21k for a single attached garage, or €38k for a double garage alongside.

This Bantry build project was taken on by a local woman who used the services of Kilkenny-based architect Barry Lynch, a relative of hers, and while she enjoyed the process and it delivered on her hopes, family circumstances meant she never made the final leap to occupy it.

Outstanding work to be completed includes final finishes/flooring in the front living room, a shower enclosure or two, and most likely a carpet for the stairs and wide landing. But, most other rooms have flooring in place, sanitary ware and plumbing, oil central heating, and a solar set-up almost ready to go and external walls are drylined and the cavity is filled with Kingspan — the BER’s already assessed at a credible B2.

Oven ready? nearly...

Auctioneer Mark Kelly says there’s a chance now for a buyer to “put their own stamp on the final look and feel,” and notes it’s well-located, on a private acre site with south aspect and lovely, long rural and hillside views and with a backdrop to the rear of mature forestry.

It’s a five minute car journey to Bantry, is near Colomane and has a national school at Dromore: neither is it remote with some near neighbours along the road.

Accommodation within includes a hall, kitchen/dining room, with fitted units and oven (powered by gas supply), with double doors to a sandstone-finished front patio, living room, also with patio access, side sun room; ground floor double bedroom/office with robes/built ins, shower room, and utility store.

Upstairs is a main bedroom with walk-in-wardrobe plus en suite, main bathroom with wood-trimmed bath, large hotpress and three other bedrooms, all doubles, one of them en suite and two with built-ins. There’s also access to a floored attic with slabbed pitched ceilings.

VERDICT: All the “heavy lifting” is done, minimal touches only remain ,which many will enjoy doing to put their on stamp on a house you’d never be able to build to this size and scale for anything like the asking price.