Tip-top four-bed semi-d on Cork's Airport Hill is going to fly

THERE’S been a steady, incremental move of home building across Cork city’s hills fringing the southside over recent decades, sometimes going up and over them, out of sight from the city, other schemes are more visible as they march onwards and get completed and landscaped.

Hills outside Douglas, for example, got colonised up to 50 years ago, with the likes of Grange and Donnybrook adapting to accommodate thousands of homes.

Beyond then came Maryborough Hill, and Rochestown/Mount Oval, and onward progress towards Passage West too, as the city’s expansion continued its flight from the centre to the more outlying communities.

Back closer to the city, the likes of Frankfield followed on from Donnybrook and Grange’s colonisation, inching westwards toward the Kinsale and Airport Road.

Here, just over that strategic, incline on the far side, the steady residential development delivery from Ruden Homes at Lehenaghmore and Lehenaghbeg has been ongoing for the best part of 20 years, now closing the gap between the hills’ dip leading up to the airport as it reached the sinuous Forge Hill. It’s now a very notable presence for those driving out of the city to Kinsale on ‘the Airport Hill.’

The building company Ruden itself sort of stood out and was notable in the post-crash period in that it never stopped house building during the absolute lull when so little stock was being delivered anywhere around the city. That doggedness means that now, after its 30th anniversary (in 2021) it can tally about 2,000 house built in and about Cork city, at the Model Farm Road, and at the likes of Ballincollig, Ovens, and Carrigaline.

Ruden’s development of many hundreds of homes in sections named Matthew Hill, Manor Farm, Coolkelure, Farm Lane sort of reached its end as the likes of the Brook Glen section got developed abut five years ago, coming up to meet Forge Hill (by the back of Dwyers Electrical, for want of another local landmark).

The Price Register shows all 20 selling from 2019, at prices broadly from €285,000 to €420,000, and being a mix of three and four-bed sems, some two storey, others three-storey.

It shows this immaculate home, 9 Brook Glen, selling new in 2020 for €325,450, and now, five years on, and really well finished-out with considerable attention to detail, look, presentation and usefulness, this three-storey, four-bed is back for the taking.

It’s being sold by a relocating couple who’ve made used of the three-storey layout since they bought and finished it out, giving themselves the option of two home offices in the mid level for occasion when they both have to work from home.

Handily, they also provided a chalet-style garne room, like to have cost €15,000 or more to buy, and it’s set up as a gym, but can be sued for almost any other activity too, for the more indolent.

Selling agent Jeremy Murphy guides No 9 at €425,000, but now, on foot of the instant reaction from home hunters, accepts it will be bid a good bit higher (the chalet/garden room is an option to be included: nearly all will want it?) Mr Murphy had ten viewings a day during the mid-week and said “it’s mental. It’s absolutely immaculate, so when people visit it they like from the first moment they arrive, and when they get to the top floor, they are bowled over: it beats suites in many hotels.”

It’s a pretty good-sized four-bed, at 1,265 sq ft, so there’s value there for buyers who, elsewhere, might be expected to pay that and more for a three-bed.

In many of Cork city’s older suburbs, they’d be paying that for a do-er which could swallow significant extra sums, often quite unquantifiable (even using the service of a quantity surveyor?!) given current construction and labour costs, and skills shortages, plus ‘opportunistic’ quotes for even small jobs.

No such worries at 9 Brook Glen, it is the quintessential ‘walk-in’ job that’s so much in demand, and it gets its fourth bedroom thanks to a very decent second floor, with a large bedroom, with a bank of built-ins, and a spacious en suite bathroom: in fact the private suite here is bigger than the main, mid-ships bathroom, which has a shower over the bath.

Back when this Lehenaghmore/Lehenaghbeg scheme kicked off, energy ratings were only becoming ’a thing,’ and they started in the ‘B’ range and, also, since the development started the location (reach up above Togher and Wilton down at the foot of the hill) is now served by public bus, the 203.

Since, too, energy standards have risen and all new-builds have to hit an ‘A’. No 9 gets a great A2 BER, with air-to-water heating, and the front reception has a wood-burning stove inset in the hearth.

VERDICT: Given the dearth of stock at this late stage of the year, those in the hunt for a place to call home in 2025 will drive on bids for this instantly appealing, easy-keep and easy-to-run semi. “It will push the boundary for prices paid here so far,” accepts the selling agent, adding he’s showing it to first-time buyers and young couples in the main “I wish I had ten more as good as this to sell them.”