Scandi-style €525k home hits the market in Cork’s Model Farm Road hotspot
First resale? Well-set Reldare is on the western end of the Model Farm Road by the Irish Guide Dogs HQ as a neighbour. Pictures: Ryan Lynch
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Model Farm Road, Cork City |
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€525,000 |
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Size |
121 sq m (1,300 sq ft) |
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Bedrooms |
3 |
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Bathrooms |
3 |
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BER |
A2 |
TWO compact, framed black-and-white images on a wall at the smart family home at 5 Reldare offer hints about the young owners’ background.
One’s a graphic image of Stavanger, a city in Norway roughly the size of Cork, and the other’s a street grid of Budapest in Hungary, where the couple met while studying years ago.
Their paths crossing in Budapest were happily fortuitous: they bonded as a couple, finished studies, started careers in paediatric medicine (she) and dentistry (he), moved back to his native Cork, and together bought their first house in March 2020 — the day before Covid lockdowns briefly halted their momentum.
In the greater scheme of things, having to wait six months or more for No 5 to be finished in a restrained ‘Scandi’ aesthetic and become their home was a minor detail, given the pandemic’s impact on so many others at home and abroad.
Now five years later, with careers progressed and two young children in tow, it’s already time to move on from this pristine Model Farm Road home: it’s likely to be the first resale in Reldare, a low-key 48-home scheme developed by O’Callaghan Properties (OCP) at the western end of the rapidly evolving Model Farm Road in Cork City’s western suburbs.
The location is top-notch: on the city side of the Poulavone roundabout, opposite the Irish Guide Dogs centre, and No 5 sits above the Reldare entry point to the front, with long views northward over mature trees to the green valley towards Muskerry and Temple Hill, catching evening light from this A2-rated new build.
The land was bought as part of a purchase of Reldare House by OCP in 2017, with the 1970s-era house demolished and its acres rezoned for residential development. The Price Register shows Reldare House sold for €1.7m, but the overall price paid by OCP is likely to have been higher given the additional acreage.
No 5 was one of the first Reldare homes completed and sold in this scheme of three- and four-bed semi-ds and four-bed detacheds, with most semi-ds priced from around €400k upwards, while the last of the four-bed detacheds sold for €600,000-plus.
That was then. Now No 5 is the first semi-d to be reoffered, guided at a modest-seeming €525,000 AMV via agent Jeremy Murphy. By coincidence it came to market the same week as No 9 Reldare, a detached four-bed — sold on day one for €584,000 — which launched with a €925,000 AMV via DNG O’Connor Finn (featuring here next weekend).
Nos 9 and 5 Reldare are certain to attract very different viewing profiles, given the €400k price gulf. Where they end up once sold, and how wide the gap becomes, will be for the end-year and early-2026 market to decide.
Mr Murphy reckons he’s going to see two ends of the age spectrum at No 5: first-time buyers on good salaries, and downsizers from the Bishopstown/Model Farm Road/Ballincollig catchment.
For the former, there are well-paying jobs at Apple and EMC/Dell in Ovens, as well as in the city’s business parks and tech employers. The easy proximity to hospitals such as the CUH and the Bons, along with Marymount and the Mercy, will also draw attention from younger medics (roughly a dozen of the 48 Reldare homes reportedly have someone working in the medical sphere).
“We can be at our jobs within a five- to 10-minute spin, and that short commute to work gives us extra hours at the end of the day to be with the children,” they say, adding they are only selling because an opportunity arose to move close to family elsewhere on the Model Farm Road, prompting a trade-up leap with their two young sons.
When they decided to buy in 2020, location was a key driver even then, given a wide choice of schools in both directions. The compact Reldare development is on a regular bus route, part of the 24-hour Carrigaline-Ballincollig service, and forms part of the future-proofed BusConnects line, with cycle-path and other infrastructure upgrades also planned to improve connections to Ballincollig and the older city suburbs.
(For dyed-in-the-wool motorists, Reldare’s proximity to the Poulavone roundabout also means speedy access to the N40/Ballincollig bypass and the start of the Straight Road at Carrigrohane.)
Model Farm Road has seen considerable infill development over the past decade, with a mix of high-end detacheds selling for more than €1m in several schemes, with Ruden Homes likely to join that price band in 2026 with a well-advanced development.
The area is also seeing new apartment schemes, including student housing at Inchigaggin Lane and Carrigrohane Apartments, and a new crane has gone up beside the Texaco garage/Parchment Square/Yugo student schemes for additional high-density housing.
Given those two ends of the scale, schemes like Reldare appear almost traditional, with its low- to medium-density mix of semi-ds and detacheds, exemplified by the 1,300 sq ft No 5 and the c. 1,900 sq ft three-storey four-bed No 9.
Five-year-old No 5 is a walk-in home for next owners, ticking boxes like an A2 rating with air-to-water heating (underfloor), triple glazing, a south-facing back garden and patio, off-street parking for two cars, and a higher-than-standard spec including solid oak herringbone floors and neutral tiles, a Kube kitchen with custom units to ceiling height, a Bora induction hob and Siemens double and steam ovens.
The B&W décor theme continues in bathrooms and sanitary ware, with a calm aesthetic (credit to the Norwegian half of the equation) and generous storage, including easy Stira access to a floored attic (possibly convertible to future living space) with very tall head height, almost like a church nave.
While the rear aspect is warm and south-facing, the front benefits from a view over mature late-autumn trees and out towards Inniscarra and the Muskerry hills.
A sure-fire, box-ticking seller in a top location, with the final price the only remaining question at No 5.
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