Top-tier coastal homes grab limelight
Schull Point is under offer at close to its €1.85 million with AMV via agents Savills and H Property, with both national and international live inquiries.
Headline-grabbing sales of high-end coastal properties continue to give the impression that anything by or on the sea commands a price premium and flies out the door – but that’s not necessarily the case in the wider picture.
Just as sectors of the domestic Irish house market are showing signs of a cooling off – or, at least a reduction in the annual pace of price inflation (6.2% nationally year to May, or 7.3% excluding Dublin) – so too it is in the case of coastal listings … regular users of property websites (and neighbours) will have noted even well-set houses by the sea sitting for months on the open market, even up to a year in some cases.
Most agents agree that it’s often down to going to market with too-high price expectations, and will advise setting realistic asking prices from the very start.
If not, it’s a case of price reduction and/or change of agent and a long time delay to seal a deal (this property reporter had been watching a Union Hall West Cork area home, across the road from the sea and facing Castletownshend, in good overall nick linger on the market for the bones of a year, dropping from a €695,000 AMV to €595,000, and finally to appear on the Price Register in May 2026 at €560,000: the market spoke.
Condition and presentation of the property matters hugely too, given the high cost of construction materials, labour costs and in many cases shortages of tradespeople to do necessary works, so the niched coastal sector is showing pretty much the same as right across the broader residential market too, even if/when vacant or derelict property grants may apply.
A good BER, walk-in order and rarity/direct water access will all but guarantee a strong sale on the coastal property front, no doubt.
While the market speaks, it sometimes sends confusing messages: the lower, more affordable end is performing very well, with plenty of willing and able buyers, many able to work from home in a favoured lifestyle location.
Returning Irish from overseas is still a strong buying cohort, as are climate refugees, with returnees from the Gulf states increasingly starting to figure, while quite surprisingly given the continuing chaos of a Donald Trump presidency, US-based interest appears to be on the wane thus far in 2026.
Off the record some estate agents will admit the higher mid to upper end (say from €600k upwards) is far less active than over the past several years, attributing it to global and economic uncertainty, employment fears, even fuel costs for commutes for those with distances to cover from shorelines to urban streetscapes.
Yet, there are the outliers – Kinsale, we’re looking at you in particular as it almost has its own secondary market in the multi-million euro category, as well as the continuing buying spree of one individual – American James Berwind – in particular.
The Price Register will show 20 sales with a Kinsale address in excess of €2 million in coming weeks, with the latest listing being the off-market sale of a detached home called Trade Winds at Ardbrack, above the Scilly Walk, at €4.75 million. The Irish Examiner this month exclusively reported the new Kinsale price record of €6.25m (not yet on the Register) for the skilfully upgraded 1870s home Prospect Villa, above the Spaniard bar at Scilly on an elevated 2.7 acre site with expansive town and harbour water views.
Prospect Villa may be James Berwind’s second Scilly purchase (there was a local underbidder,) after he paid €5.5m for Seaspray two years ago, and he has also bought at least three multi-million properties at Sandycove, where he all but demolished the rare Georgian villa Sprayfield on 40 acres and which he’d bought for €4.5m in 2023 (ironically it was one of his cheapest purchases so far).
That string of purchases has its own impact on the micro-market and leaves locals perplexed. “Why buy so many, for so much?” is the question to which one local estate agent answers “because he can.”
Even higher-priced than the top, recently agreed Kinsale sale is the stunning Coolmain Castle at Kilbrittain, a nine-bed castellated wonder on 56 acres some of which has sea frontage. Coolmain was bought by sailor Roy Disney in 1989 and may be about to leave Disney family hands this year. It launched in April 2025 with a €7.5m AMV which it still carries, and is understood to have had five viewings in the past two months, with at least one of them a second viewing.
At €7.5m, it’s likely the highest price tag of any Cork coastal listing ever for a single dwelling. Kilfinnan Castle in West Cork’s Glandore was reported to have made close to €7m in 2019, but shows on the Register at €5.7m, as a value on one acre and its additional land would have added considerable further value.
Yet, both premium coastal castles fall a far cry short of the c €35m that UK billionaire James Dyson had paid for the period Ballynatray House and its many hundreds of Munster acres on the Cork-Waterford border.
Website searches for €1m+ Cork properties roughly indicate that just over half of the c 80 listings above this price level are coastal, coastal adjacent, or in and around Kinsale.
The most prized predictably enough have direct water access, a cove, or ideally their own pier, slipway or jetty, while a land belt around them to ensure privacy also carries a premium among the wealthy elite.
