Future-proofed Cork city home by The Lough  ready for new owner  

No 14 St Joseph's Park was done up for its owner's advancing years - but she upped anchor for a reinvigorated life by the sea

Sun trap: 14 St Joseph's Park has a perfect rear aspect. Agents ERA Downey McCarthy guide from €495,000

The Lough, Cork City
€495,000
Size	115 sq m (1,230 sq ft)-
Bedrooms	3
Bathrooms	2
BER	B3-

AN ARTISTIC eye, as well as one with a bit of flair for architectural aplomb, has been applied to 14 St Joseph’s Park — it’s a semi-detached 1940s bungalow near Cork city’s The Lough, brought up to a B3 BER by its savvy woman owner of the  past decade or so.

Extended to the back with a very extensively glazed add-on with floor-to-ceiling windows and which houses a kitchen, dining area, and sunny seating spot, and intended as a permanent trade-down, future proofing home, it's now a very comfortable 1,230 sq ft hidden suburban city pad,  put up for sale as a late-year offer with a €495,000 guide via ERA Downey McCarthy.

Modest front to No 14

While it mighty appear off the beaten suburban path, its setting is pure Cork: from here, you can make out the outline shapes of the CUH, County Hall and the broad dome of the church at Dennehy's Cross.

Glass act

Its vendor - with a practical, nursing background -  did it up for her 'older' decades, well in advance of necessity, putting in things like easy access sloping ramps: then, covid came!

Light and bright

She relocated for lockdowns to a pretty West Cork coastal village, got an appreciative new lease of life down west ...and, with sons reared, ain't coming back to town.

ERA agent Sean McCarthy says his vendor's home is not only a in great location near UCC, hospitals like the Bons and CUH, and wildfowl sanctuary The Lough, it’s also in walk-in order, and he’s not surprised that there’s an immediate response to his listing in the run-up to Christmas.

It could indeed make a very nice end-of-year gift for the right buyer? This is often the time of the year when home hunters who’ve been disappointed on other property listings or outbid repeatedly decide to make the jump before a new selling season commences all over again next spring, with all of the consequent uncertainty.

No 14 shows on the Price Register as selling as a do-er-up in 2013 for a recorded €180,000, when the market was only starting its recovery price-wise from the crash: It was the lowest sale price visible in St Joseph’s Park out of the last 10 resales showing. Values have risen steadily since ’13, through the €200ks and €300ks to sit at a current high of €485,000 for No 18 earlier this year, just preceded by the €475,000 paid for No 15 also in 2025.

With an attic conversion of sorts, No 13 St Joseph’s Park, had sold three years after No 14’s last sale, in 2016 as the recovery continue its trajectory, making a recorded €391,000.

Selling No 13 back then — almost a decade ago — was ERA’s Mr McCarthy who says it wasn’t in as fresh condition as No 14 now presents in, thanks to design and delivery input from QS Bill Feehely and engineer Michael O'Driscoll.

Two of the three bedrooms are to the front of this home, with a third toward the back and which has a shower room en suite. The main living room is to the back too, facing a courtyard bounded on the left by a wall of the now also extended No 13, with No 14’s own flat-roofed extension on the right.

This back room with south and west aspect is bright, with a seated space for reading or bird- and garden- and patio-watching screened under a kitchen counter by the dining area, with a large flat membrane roof above, fringed externally with some cedar sheeting.

VERDICT: As suitable for starters-out as traders-down, with off-street parking, spot-on rear aspect, great nick, good BER (thus green rate mortgage eligible) and a great, under-the-radar location by the Lough and major employers and amenities.