This week: Churchtown, Dundrum, Rathfarnham

Number 30 Nutgrove Avenue is a good-sized former local authority three-bed terraced house at the Rathfarnham end of Nutgrove Avenue, a road where houses are much sought after and quickly snapped up. Not far from Butterfield Road at the Rathfarnham end, and near Churchtown Road at the other, it is a bustling road that is close to a range of schools, shops and parks, and fairly accessible to the city centre on a number of bus routes. Nutgrove Shopping centre, of course, is an attractive amenity.

Number 30 is for sale by private treaty through Sherry FitzGerald, which is looking for £129,500 for the property. The house, built in 1962, has a living room with a tiled fireplace, a dining room near the front of the house, and a good-sized kitchen. There are two double bedrooms and one single upstairs, all with built-in wardrobes, and a part-tiled bathroom.

There is a walled 85 ft long garden at the rear, looking over Loreto Abbey towards the Dublin mountains. The front of the house overlooks the Castle Golf Club.

At first glance, Churchtown, Dundrum and Rathfarnham would not appear to be a promising hunting ground for first-time buyers. Dublin 14, and the parts of Dublin 16 which border it, is regarded in general as a good - and expensive - address, a solid respectable southside suburban area relatively close to Dublin's city centre. But although houses here usually command prices well over £150,000, it is possible to find properties costing from £130,000 to £150,000, and even some for less. And although most first-time buyers come to the market with a budget under £125,000, a surprising number will buy properties that cost more than that, many agents confirm.

Vincent Clerkin, of Boyle & Associates, in Dundrum, says: "I find a lot of first-time buyers are being helped out financially by a close relative, and that's happening left, right and centre." (This has been dubbed the PG - parental gift - factor, says Mary Dillon of Sherry FitzGerald.) He advises first-time buyers looking for homes in the area to have between £130,000 and £150,000, to give themselves a reasonable choice.

The kind of properties available in this price range include former local authority homes in a variety of estates - with houses, for example, on Nutgrove Road being particularly prized - up to privately-built houses in Ballinteer and Dundrum.

Somebody interested in buying here would do well to get to know the area first, for less expensive houses are to be found in small, surprising pockets dotted all over the area.

A casual visitor to Dundrum, for example, would never suspect the existence of Milltown Grove, a lane of turn-of-the-century cottages bordering a tributary of the Dodder just off the main Dundrum Road near the corner with Bird Avenue. A two-bed period cottage in need of total renovation was sold here recently for around £105,000 by Sherry FitzGerald. Very close by is Farrenboley Cottages, a network of attractive properties on larger sites on a windy country-style road. These command prices from £135,000 upwards. Drive to the far side of these cottages, and you come to a quiet former local authority estate bordering a large green area, looking over towards the imposing old railway bridge over the River Dodder at Milltown. A mid-terrace three-bed house on Patrick Doyle Road or Columbanus Road will sell for around £130,000 to £135,000, with some properties here costing up to £155,000, says Mary Dillon. Another 1950s former local authority estate, Mulvey Park, also commands strong prices, says agent Ray Gannon of Gannon estate agents in Dundrum. A mid-terrace three-bed with a 145 ft long rear garden in this estate in the area known as Windy Arbour - next to the Central Mental Hospital, Dundrum - can be found here for around £135,000.

And Sherry FitzGerald says that houses in Rosemont, a 1960s-built local authority estate, can cost £145,000 up to £170,000, rising in price as they come closer to roads such as Mount Carmel and Farmhill.

Many first-time buyers will be attracted to the closer-to-town end of Dublin 14. But for those willing to head further out, closer towards Sandyford, there are good value 1970s-onwards suburban homes to be found in estates such as Woodpark, Broadford and Kingston Grove.

Where a three-bed semi on Sweetmount Avenue or Laurel Road, near Dundrum's main street, may fetch £170,000, a good-sized three-bed in Ballinteer will cost between £130,000 and £150,000.

And in a privately-built estate like Llewellyn, built about 19 years ago, houses cost from £125,000 to £140,000. The 300 or so houses in this estate - mostly three-bed 900 sq ft semis - sell steadily, says Vincent Clerkin, of Boyle & Associates. Although postally in Rathfarnham, Dublin 16, they are near Broadford Road, and not far from the end of Barton Road East.

There are also cheaper houses in some of the newer, less settled local authority estates in the area, where prices can range from under £100,000 up to around £120,000, and some first-time buyers who may have grown up in nearby private estates are opting to buy homes here. A house in Mountainview, for example, off Nutgrove Avenue, may cost around £105,000. In Loreto, a more settled 1950s estate, a three-bed mid-terrace house will cost around £115,000 to £120,000. A house in Whitechurch costs around £85,000.