Trick or treat? Cork's long-mothballed ghost estate is €1.24m Halloween week offer

A HANDFUL of houses that formed part of a niche, but high-profile ‘ghost estate’ in Cork’s affluent suburb of Rochestown have finally come to market … in this Halloween week.

Just detailed online — a month after a ‘for sale’ sign was posted by online selling agents Youbid — and with a price tag of €1.24m is Ashley, a part-completed development with four houses substantially completed.

The four are done to an ‘Edwardain/Arts and Crafts’ design template, and they replaced an older home of that same name. Ashely Mark ll   came a cropper when the property market collapsed back in the mid- to late-2000s.

Designed by BOC Architects and developed at the time by a family behind the eventually completed Lindville development on the Blackrock Road in Ballintemple, Ashley had hopes of €1m+ plus sales before hitting the skids.

One home was finished out as a showhouse, offered in 2009 with a €1.3m price tag (later reduced, twice, but unsold): it’s now boarded up and the other three are unfinished internally, while two sites remain largely untouched, but with services on site).

VERDICT: Trick or treat? Ashley will appeal to builders mostly who may take on this part-completed, once ambitious and grandly conceived project by the roundabout by St Patrick’s Church. External finishes are tops, but the sites are tight and having been empty for over 15 years they might merit close surveyor scrutiny too.