€1 million price bracket getting hit more and more around Cork's Model Farm Road

THE €1 million price mark is, increasingly being hit on and around Cork city’s Model Farm Road western suburban setting – is it coming in now as a sort of west-east balancing act for the price heft of the Blackrock Road??

The Price Register shows 23 sales in excess of €1m with a Model Farm Road address: subtracting properties that sold for development there’s probably around 18 private homes making this sort of money, with a few more likely to surface during 2025, thanks to the likes of high-end, top spec new builds such as at Merton and Vailima, where original homes at the city end got replaced by niche and upscale developments, with one or two more high-end home sales in train also along its length.

Cast a western suburban net slightly wider than the specific Model Farm Road address and the number of new builds topping €1m continue to rise up, taking in the likes of Ecklinville on Orchard Road, with sales tipping over €1.3m or, going a bit more off-piste, Earls Well in Waterfall topping out of late around €1.1m in cases.

Our records show that the first new home launches in Cork from Celtic Tiger times to have prices set over €1m was in late 2021, pinned to the launch of Vailima near Dennehy's Cross  at the time.

Now, into this price echelon comes Silvergrove which was, it turns out, built back in 2007 just as the Irish property market was at its very peak, before its nose dive after the collapse of Lehman Brothers bank in 2008 and the ensuing global banking and property crashes to various domino degrees.

Silvergrove comes to the open market at the end of 2024, a year of strong price growth likely to have been in the order of 10%, and coming on the back of a price/value surge since the pandemic, and strong economic activity.

It’s priced at €945,000 by selling agent Jeremy Murphy for a private vendor and is likely to sell for more given the scale of demand in the area at and around this sort of sum.

It’s largely driven by medics, of course, with the appointment of consultants at the likes of the CUH/CUMH, Bon Secours and Mercy Hospitals, while the new Primary Care centre in Ballincollig has also shored up demand even further in the western reaches of the city.

Silvergrove is set just off the Model Farm Road, on the city end of the Carriganara Road and shares a Carrigrohane address too, and is one of a number of one-off detached homes of various sizes and scales in the setting, near to St Oliver’s Cemetery as a handy location marker.

Big selling points? Size, location and quite possibly the clincher for some home hunters, a decent size site of 0.3 of an acre, with very well kept gardens and lawns, big tarmac drive, and the inclusion of a block-built- detached garden room/shed/possible home office or gym.

Quite traditional in design and style, as well as possibly in internal layout, it is a wide, well-sized five-bay, five bedroomed family home of over 2,750 sq ft, with a good level of internal finishes, good mix of reception rooms including a triple aspect sun room on the western gable, and has a floored and insulated attic of nearly 600 sq ft more, handy for storage and currently reached by a Stira-style pull-down steps.

The more formal reception room on the right of the hall/porch entrance has a white marble fireplace, on the other side is a family room/lounge/dining room with stove, and double doors to the sun room with another stove, while a further set of double doors open to the rear kitchen, with white Stanley range cooker plus electric ovens.

It all gets a good B2 BER, and is adaptable for many life cycle stages as one of the five bedrooms is at ground level, to the back right corner with a bathroom with shower (there’s also a guest WC by the utility).

An oak stairs, carpeted, goes to the first floor’s four other bedrooms, most with good robes and one’s also en suite: the main family bathroom is fully tiled, and has a bath for those who like long soaks (there are PV solar panels to help cut energy bills too.) VERDICT: Well-built and finished, it has space inside and outside for many family sizes, while for those yearning for the currently still popular large, open plan kitchen/living/dining set-ups might want to look at future adaptations to realise this goal.