Irish coastal homes attracting top prices in a buoyant market
Some coastal properties in Ireland have virtually doubled in value compared to five years ago. Cork alone has more than 1,000km of coastline.
Lucky us!
Almost two million of us live within five kilometres of the sea, or of the ocean and our surrounding seas, and a slightly higher amount, some 2.5 million, live within 10kms of surrounding water, thanks to our being a small island, with a particularly indented coastline in the southwest, west and northwest sections, and not surprisingly they’re the country’s most scenic setting too, to boot.
That number (it was 1.9m by 2016, and is likely higher now post-a Covid surge to the sea) has swollen to that sort of scale thanks to having major Irish cities on the island’s fringes: Cork, Dublin, Galway, Limerick and Waterford, with the calculation of such numbers in close proximity made by the Central Statistics, who note that it includes those living on estuarine stretches such as Cork and Shannon and around harbours too.
Those inclusions help to explain the fact that 61% of Cork city and county’s population live within 5km of the sea, versus a national figure of 40%.
The CSO figures measure straight-line distance to the coastline, so that’s pretty much as the seagull or the crow flies.
To narrow it down further, the CSO reckons that 40,468 of us live within stone-skipping or sea spray distance: they put it at 100 metres. Quite incredibly some17,140 of that figure (or 3.2% of the entire population) live within 100 metres of the sea in Cork alone.
We do have a lot of coastline to share, thankfully. The country has c 3,700 kms of it, according to Ordinance Survey Ireland (OSI), and if you were to go in and out every indent and creek, it’s about double that run, closer to or over 7,000 kms, and much of that is rightly precious, and pricey in property value terms.
Bookending much of the extensive shoreline are the counties of Cork and Donegal (coincidentally the start/end points of the runaway tourism marketing success story the Wild Atlantic Way,) with both Donegal and Cork claiming 1,000 kms of frontage each.
Numerous studies show that exposure to so-called ‘green space’ and to 'blue space' have a positive impact both on our physical and mental well-being: bigger skies, more sunlight, less polluted air; more in tune with passage of time; the time of day; the state of the tides if by the sea, to the seasons, and the shift of weather patterns too.
Compared to urban living, those who live in less densely populated areas tend to be more physically active, whether it be countryside hikes, beach or cliff walks, cycling, swimming, and a myriad other water-based activities too.
Being in touch (visually, aware of scents, aurally, in our skins even) with the elements, wildlife, and marine life seems to suit our bodies and psyches too, be it the likes of Cork’s Marina with the Lee river on one side and the enclosed Atlantic Pond on the other (a sort of misnomer, indeed), while psychological studies show even an urban fountain can have a positive, calming effect, restorative effect.
We get health by stealth in buckets and spades by the sea, gaining an outdoor wellbeing premium when we visit, a feature known for generations, with Irish resorts, spas and sanitoria springing up from Victorian times, trading on the gains from fresh air, seaweed baths, outdoor ‘wild’ swimming and the like.
Not for nothing do we tend to holiday by the sea, at home and abroad.
The enjoyment levels, and the health benefits, that can accrue from a seaside holiday can then surely be gained in multiples by living by the sea, or the water.
Ever before the global pandemic arrived on our shores over three years ago Irish properties by the sea were highly prized and highly priced too (like in many other countries, including the UK, where historically coastal properties have had a 10% uplift over identical houses not by the sea.) Our own demand goes back decades, to the 1960s and the growth of home holidays, and to the likes of the 1995 designated tax-incentivised developments (admittedly of very mixed quality day-one) in 16 coastal resorts, initially developed for rental use only, but now providing permanent homes for many since the incentives ran out.
It's reckoned that covid drove a 20% price hike in coastal property values, over and above national average growth since 2019, and some exceptional and headline-grabbing price have indeed been paid.
Some locations have virtually doubled in value compared to five years ago, and while the first initial surges have dropped off as enforced remote working and the freedom to relocate fades with many companies trying to foster a ‘return to the office,’ there’s still an elevated demand outstripping supply, and some still-startling prices paid by super-wealthy buyers from overseas to whom Irish house value are, by their book, a drop in the ocean.
