UK buyers back buying in west Cork

UK AND other overseas buyers are returning to the west Cork holiday homes market after more than a decade of investing elsewhere, according to one of the area’s leading estate agents.

Skibbereen-based auctioneer Charles McCarthy has recently sold a handful of holiday homes to UK and Irish buyers living abroad, as property values continue to fall in popular locations like Castletownshend, Glandore, Union Hall and other well known holiday towns.

McCarthy has just sold a Georgian house needing total refurbishment on the main street of Castletownshend for €600,000. The buyer, an Irishman based in Hong Kong, was keen to get a foothold back in the Irish property market, says McCarthy.

Meanwhile a smaller house at Toe Head has just been sold for around €300,000 to an English buyer, while a townhouse in Union Hall has also sold quickly, for €200,000, to a UK buyer, as did a house in the countryside at Castlehaven: it had been on the market at €380,000 but eventually fetched €400,000 after competitive bidding.

According to McCarthy there is now “keen interest” coming from Britain and it is something he has not seen for a decade or more. “Previously we sold to a lot of British buyers, but they gave up because they felt we were too expensive. They went to Spain, and France and Eastern Europe instead, and some of them got stung. Now they are coming back here.”

The new Cork-Swansea ferry service is having a positive effect on the market, while the weakening euro has also put more money in the pockets of buyers with sterling to spend.

“They feel they are getting a good deal now, and that they are not too far from home. Also the same property laws pertain here and they find this reassuring.”

While prices have not dropped as dramatically in west Cork as elsewhere, there are still some sizeable discounts in the market.

The best value on his books at the moment, says McCarthy is a house on 80 acres in Kilcolman that has been reduced from €900,000 to €400,000 by Swedish owners keen to sell.