Menloe Gardens home hits market for €845k with extension potential to rival €1.5m neighbour

Planning-approved Glendhu in Menloe Gardens is already over guide as Cork’s €1m+ property surge continues in Blackrock

Glendhu is a 1,378 sq ft four-be semi-d in Menloe Gardens. Agent Dennis Guerin guides from €845,000

Menloe Gardens, Blackrock Road, Cork city
€845,000
Size	128 sq m (1,378 sq ft)
Bedrooms	4
Bathrooms	3
BER	C1

IF YOU missed out on the last upmarket home offer at Cork’s much-loved Menloe Gardens off the Blackrork Road, here’s a second chance to buy — and for a lot less cash.

Rear view of Glendhu in  Menloe Gardens

Spring this year brought an extended and upgraded detached family home called The Limes in Blackrock’s keenly-rated Menloe Gardens to market with a €1.5m price guide: that was for a four-bed, four-bath B3 rated home of 2,200 sq ft, west facing at the back. The Limes is already sale agreed already at just over that €1.5m guide, it’s understood.

The Limes Menloe Gardens is sale agreed at over its €1.5m AMV

Now, for a considerable lesser sum (ahem) here’s Glendhu, a semi-detached home of 1,378 sq ft, with full planning granted in 2022 for a 790 sq ft extension: it’s launched at €845,000, and is under current and early offer at €855,000.

If Glendhu were to get the additional 790 sq ft/73 sq m footprint, this would bring this current four-bed in good overall condition up to 2,170 sq ft, so pretty much on a size par with its near neighbour The Limes which went for over its Sherry FitzGerald guide after more than a dozen viewings and robust bidding.

At €1.5m plus, The Limes is now the highest price on record for Menloe Gardens where, despite the evergreen appeal of this cul de sac park, the €1m+ price threshold has only been breached once since the Celtic Tiger times: that was for Kingslee, a modern build on a large corner site which fetched €1.242m in 2019.

Menloe’s ‘almost modest’ roll call of sales over the last decade has seen prices typically paid in the €650,000 to €850,000 bracket.

Sun room extension and opened out kitchen/dining  rear of Glendhu

It’s only when they sell that Menloe homes swell to 2,000 sq ft or more. Certainly, more than a handful here around the green that have been worked on and enlarged in the past two decades and would make even higher prices if and when they come for sale (think €1.5m-€2m) for this park, generally considered a location for life.

This month’s offer, Glendhu, has already hit the ground running, and despite the local adage of Menloe being that ‘location for life’, its current owners have only been here since 2016, when they paid €650,000 for it.

That was after previous owners — who bought in 2009 for €500,000 according to our records — had opened up the ground floor with inter-connected rooms and also added the sunroom after subsidence work had been tackled and the BER was brought to a C1.

Estate agent Dennis Guerin of Frank V Murphy & Co says he already has 20 viewings at Glendhu and it has a broad appeal, with bids from a spectrum, including returnees to Cork City from overseas. He reckons it may go into the high €800ks, possibly tip over €900,000 given the current strength in the market.

It’s in good order as it is, with a sun room extension to the rear plus detached garage and home office/garden room (Glendhu’s ‘other half’ of the semi-d pairing has a very substantial ground floor extension with pitched roof) and still manages to get in four bedrooms (none very large), with one en suite for its 1,378 sq ft overall footprint.

Home office in the south-asected back garden

Those who’ve viewed to date are divided: some will take it as it is, possibly do upgrades, other will want to extend but they’ll have the option to live in it straight away if they want, and decide when and just how they might enlarge it as some future time: the current planning grant runs up to 2027.

VERDICT: Going on current extension costs of c €3,000 per sq metre for ground floor extensions in the city suburbs, that could see a build cost of €250,000 and more for the planning granted here, a wrap-around over two floors. If done this would push total expenditure here at Glendhu to well over €1m for an eventual good sized 2,170 sq ft semi-d.

Semi-detached 17 Lindville in Ballintemple is on the Price Register at €1.225 million 

The Property Price Register shows a strong €1.225m paid for a 2,600 sq ft five bed semi d in Lindville, Ballintemple, up from a €950,000 AMV on its February 2025 launch when we wondered if it would be the first Lindville semi - to top €1m. It was …further evidence of the frothy home market, with €1m+ budgets seeming ten a penny.