Clonakilty's €585k Sliabh na mBan is a long, long  way from Tipperary

‘HE’S a good salesman, he loves meeting buyers on site and showing them around,” says auctioneer Con O’Neill of PJ Hayes, the West Cork builder who himself sold out the entire 42-home Sliabh na mBan scheme, on the back of a well-esteemed local reputation and his own on-site demeanour.

Mr O’Neill is talking about the smart-looking scheme on the start of the Dunmore Road, heading west out of Clonakilty town towards Ardfield, to numerous beaches, coves and points further west.

It consists of a mix of detacheds and semi-ds, along with three larger, individually designed one-offs on serviced sites facing the road, two of them built and the last due to start.

“They all sold by word of mouth,” Mr O’Neill says. “PJ met every buyer directly and went through the plans with them,” notes the Sherry FitzGerald O’Neill agent with respect, and that’s not normally a point that auctioneers who sell for a percentage fee like to hear, or to repeat.

But Mr O’Neill has seized his moment for at least one selling fee, so far: No 36 Sliabh na mBan, a detached three-bed of 1,350 sq ft, right in the middle of the site, done to a high spec and ready for occupation. Meeting the builder is optional, but PJ’s still on site, so he’s likely to turn up anyway.

The owners of No 36 must have been doubly impressed day one, as they bought not just one house, but two from him, and with their second purchase now completed they are ready to upsticks from No 36 and to move just a few doors away: Furniture on castors can probably be wheeled from one house to the other!

This well-finished and only lightly lived in 125 sq m/1,350 sq ft detached is guided by Sherry FitzGerald O’Neill at €585,000, and the Price Register shows it selling by summer of 2024 at €525,000.

Despite that c €60k difference in price, Con O’Neill says “the owners didn’t buy it to speculate and, after the costs to finish it, with PC sums for the kitchen, landscaping and the patio and other costs, they won’t be making much at all extra out of it. And build costs have continued to go up to since Sliabh na mBan was started in 2020.”

The auctioneer admits that many people will see €585,000 as a strong price ask for a three-bed, even one that is detached and within a few minutes’ walk of the centre of Clonakilty (no footpath linking to town yet, though).

This week’s Central Statistics Office 2024 report shows values in the Irish house market continuing to rise, with an 8.7% hike in values in the past year, which is still upwards, but at a lower pace after several years of double-digit inflation.

Delving deeper, this week’s CSO report shows the median price for 2024 for Clonakilty’s P85 eircode tag was €360,000, just €5k above the national median price of €355,000; it also highlighted that national median residential property values are now 112% of the previous market peak, back in 2007.

In any case, there’s been a swift response to the listing of No 36, the first resale in Sliabh namBan. All others were sold as new, at prices from €300,000 to €536,250.

Early interest is coming in the main from traders-down and relocators from houses further out in the countryside, as well as returnees, singles, but, unusually enough, not so much younger families.

In fact, young families would be in a minority overall within the development, Mr O’Neill reckons.

This immediately available house comes with a Ducon slab to the upper level, allowing for block partition walls upstairs and for underfloor heating on both levels (it’s air to water), plus there’s triple glazing, helping this house get its A2 BER.

Layout is unusual in that the detached house with asymmetric façade is wide, and quite shallow, with a double-aspect sitting room full depth to the right of the hall at about 17’/5.45m deep, and linking to a kitchen/dining room with two-tone units and utility beyond.

There’s a guest WC at ground, main family bathroom, and one en suite bedroom, while bedroom number three is long and narrow, just about 7’ wide.

Finishes are excellent, especially the tiling choices, and the condition is as-new.

VERDICT: Set just on a hill less than a kilometre from the town’s bypass road, Clonakilty’s Sliabh na mBan shares its name with a mountain in Tipperary, Slievenamon, and also with the name of the Rolls Royce armoured car that was carrying local hero, Michael Collins, when he was ambushed and killed at Béal na Bláth in 1922.