€925k Cork city home could be just what doctor ordered

Strong demand from CUH, major tech employers and upcoming luxury schemes continues to push west Cork city property values firmly into the €1m bracket

Fri, 28 Nov, 2025 - 00:00

Tommy Barker, Property Editor

Model Farm Road, Carrigrohane, Cork
€925,000
Size	182 sq m (1,960 sq ft)
Bedrooms	4
Bathrooms	4
BER	A2

IT’S been true for decades — proximity to Cork University Hospital (CUH) has underpinned home values and housing demand in the city’s western suburbs, ever since the late 1970s when the Regional Hospital, aka the ‘Wilton Hilton’, opened its doors.

Today, as CUH approaches its 50th anniversary (2028), the sprawling campus employs 5,300 people across all grades, with top-tier medical consultants among the best paid — on salaries from €230,000 to €350,000 in public practice, going far higher again for those with an element of private practice.

Adding to that, the private hospital Bon Secours has about 1,600 employees across all grades, while demand in the western suburbs is also driven by the Mercy University Hospital (1,400 employees) and Marymount hospice.

And that’s before considering the impact of high-tech wages from the likes of Apple in Hollyhill (5,000+ employees in Cork) and Dell/EMC in Ovens, which employs up to 2,000 people.

This concentration of well-paid working families has driven and sustained house values west of the city centre: the Price Register shows about two dozen €1m+ sales with a Model Farm Rd address, with more if you extend to College Rd, Sunday’s Well, and Waterfall, where a number of housing schemes have now passed the €1m barrier for new builds.

One, No 3 Ecklinville, the former showhouse on Orchard Rd near UCC, sold in 2025 for €1.642m, with all nine other homes in the scheme achieving over €1.25m.

Exterior of 9 Reldare, by the Poulevone roundabout on the Model Farm Road

And there’s more coming.

Seasoned developers Ruden Homes, who delivered the Model Farm Rd’s upmarket scheme Hayfield in 2002, have two more Model Farm Rd schemes advancing in construction: Hermitage Farm and Dromvane Farm, at 33 and 22 units respectively, including a mix of semi-detached homes and detacheds, with some of the largest reaching up to 2,500 sq ft.

Hermitage Farm is expected to launch early in the new year, with the larger detached houses likely to come in at €1m+, possibly €1.25m for some, but no details are confirmed.

With talk of Ruden’s launch swirling, it’s already influencing 2025 and 2026 home-hunters and affecting other resales in the Model Farm Rd/western suburbs/Ballincollig area. Into this comes the launch of No 9 Reldare, a showhome-standard, four-bed, detached, 1,960 sq ft, five-year-old home in the 48-unit Reldare scheme by the Poulavone Roundabout/Carrigrohane, by O’Callaghan Properties.

First viewings started this week with agent Fiona Waldron of DNG Finn O’Connor, and she launched it at €925,000 for relocating owners who put their own assured décor stamp on it during their short time here.

With twins in tow (she’s a medical specialist, he’s a teacher), their travels are over for now as they prepare for a move to another Munster location to be closer to family in a more rural setting.

They say they’ll miss both the friends they made among Reldare neighbours and the comfort of an A2-rated home.

“It’s like living in a hotel — the house is always at the same temperature and there’s always hot water,” they chime, quipping that when they first met, the living accommodation of the time was “like an ice box”. Not the case here.

The couple bought No 9 in 2021 after viewing the scheme in progress, and they reckon that in securing No 9, near the front of the cul-de-sac of three and four-bed homes, they got one of the last four-bed detacheds.

They paid €596,000 (the Price Register lists it at €584,000) and, as it was to be a showhouse type for O’Callaghan Properties, it already had a kitchen fitted. Luckily, they liked the look and layout of the dark-grey units and pale quartz tops with antique brass T-handles but, elsewhere, they made several personal and successful adaptations.

Chief among these was the decision to line an entire internal wall in the kitchen/diner with salvaged red bricks dating back to the 19th or even 18th century, sourced from Deco Stones, Ballincollig.

Its website shows similar reclaimed brick slips retailing at about €60 per square metre, and here they are skilfully set with pale mortar around a side window, with the same brick used across the kitchen as a full-height splashback behind a slick hob.

Of this mix of contemporary and traditional, “I like a modern rustic look,” admits one of the couple, suggesting a dream might still be an old farmhouse in West Cork… if they ever yearn for a return to more ice-box days.

There’s more brick — white, by way of contrast to the vintage stock — in No 9’s front living room on the chimney breast/home hearth, with its LED-lit, app-controlled steam-flame electric fire (Faber E-Matrix, via Flame by Design).

It’s framed in a bespoke, bevelled white-painted timber surround by Brogeen Crafts, Kanturk, who also made the rustic solid-wood bookshelves flanking the fireplace.

Other upmarket touches include dado/wainscoting wall panelling by Tipperary firm Wallpanels, a staircase with pale runner carpet, top-floor en suite bedrooms, and a large dual-aspect space currently used as a man cave, gym, and study with extensive eaves storage.

Like many parents in today’s common three-storey builds, the couple chose to sleep on the mid-level to be near their young children — moving up to the more private top-floor suite can be considered a ‘trade-up for future years’ in these ‘homes for life’.

Buying No 9 was meant to be long-term for these vendors, but the pull of family further afield has proven too strong.

The house sits on a wedge-shaped site with early landscaping already taking hold, room for climbers up a rear boundary wall, and a bright south-east rear aspect, plus off-street parking in front for several cars.

No 9 comes to market the same month as the 121 sq m (1,300 sq ft) three-bed semi-D No 5 Reldare, which featured in these pages last Saturday with a €525,000 AMV through agent Jeremy Murphy, who was reporting a dozen viewings at No 5 by this weekend.

VERDICT: Residents reckon that over a dozen homes in 48-unit Reldare have “a medic in the house” and joke that most healthcare specialisms are represented. Who will find these offers just what the doctors ordered?