Jet-in and sail-in millionaire  buyers putting the sales in super-hot spot Kinsale

KINSALE is ending the year on yet another high note, with high-end house buyers coming in on private jets, private yachts, and rocking up in limos.

Just sold, quite incredibly, for twice its asking price of €1.5m, to fetch a reported €3m is Annefield House in Oysterhaven, a pristine period property, low-slung, and charming (pictured) which featured in these pages in May, for trade-down vendors.

It’s understood that it had gone “sale agreed” at over its launch €1.5m AMV via agents  Savills - who have not commented on the transaction - at a handy enough €1.85m with that agreed sale well in train, when a further, higher-flying bidder came to Cork, and made a killer bid, straight in, at €3m, with the previous top bidder, also from overseas, instantly edged out.

The enormous gazumping bid of over €1m as a “cherry on top” seems to have paid off for the US buyer (and vendors), as Annefield is already on the Price Register at a reported €2.775m.

It’s done and dusted, in less than six months since going on the public market: The additional value of the land, c. 5.6 acres in all, will have brought the total deal up to the €3m mark, making it a pearl purchase in Oysterhaven.

With portions dating back to the 1700s, the c. 3,800 sq ft Annefield House last sold in 2010 for €775,000, and was significantly invested in since by its Cork owners.

Meanwhile, on the other, upriver side of Kinsale, also just sold in the past week is Leighmoney More House, near Dunderrow (pic, below left): It had carried a €1.8m AMV via Sherry FitzGerald, and is understood to have sold for over €2.2m after good bidding, which may make the Price Register by year’s end.

The purchaser is local and previously sold a Georgian waterfront home, Raffeen House in Scilly, 18 months ago for €4.75m to wealthy US buyer, Thomas C Quick.

Raffeen’s buyer, third generation American-Irish, Quick is Florida-based, supports the Ireland Funds and Irish Georgian Society, and now moors his private yacht at the ScillyKinsale property’s jetty on visits, when not back at his home base in Florida.

Tom Quick isn’t, however, the only US buyer with a private yacht to adopt Kinsale of late, and to spend millions of euros on a Munster property.

The Irish Examiner previously reported the July €4.5m sale of Sprayfield House, Sandycove, to US billionaire James Berwind, also Florida-based, and who visits this side of the Atlantic on his €80m Scout superyacht.

Mr Berwind is now doing upgrades to the Georgian villa Sprayfield, on 40 waterfronting acres.

It shows at €3.8m on the Price Register, but made closer to €4.5m when the land value is added on, a bit behind the €5.08m paid for Constantia Farm on Compass Hill, which at last appears with a Cork address on the Price Register.

Some of the contents of Sprayfield House, the long-time home to ex-UCC president Gerry Wrixon, are due for auction with Lynes & Lynes later this month.

Right next door to Sprayfield, Savills also notched up the sale of Courtaparteen House, a more modern build, at €1.7m, sold for US trade-down owners.

Also just sold at the same price level is Ringcurran House, Ardbrack, at €1.85m, sold via Sherry FitzGerald.

By this roundabout way, welcome, to 18B, a duplex 1,475 sq ft three-bed apartment at Kinsale’s Ardbrack Heights which, given the above prices, is “almost” entry level at its €750,000 AMV, quoted by agent Eileen Neville of Lisney Sotheby’s International Realty.

At €750k, it’s just 25% of the whopping €3m shelled out for Annefield House, whose agents Savills also have a double-sized apartment at Ardbrack Heights, No 19B and c. 2,500 sq ft, understood to be   “sale agreed” at over €1.35m AMV.

More modest, in good, but decoratively dated order, Apt 18B is being sold by Lisney/SIR’s Ms Neville, for out-of-town vendors who have owned it several decades, using it for holidays, selling up she suggests as they are not getting enough use out of it now.

It has rooms (and bedrooms) over two levels, with a perfectly positioned balcony at the lower/entry level for those all-important, and highly prized, killer Kinsale harbour views.

No 18B is put at 138 sq m or c. 1,470 sq ft offering “comfort, privacy, and convenience, with ample living space and excellent potential for modernization” for the potential new owners, negotiator Ms Neville says, of the mid-terrace duplex.

With its rooms painted in yellows, pinks, and greens, coloured bathroom suites, extensive carpets and timber kitchen, it does feel “original” to earlier decades, and currently has a middling BER rating of D1.

With prices locally on a crest, Lisney/Sotheby's  say  the sale of this sunny, harbour facing, three-bedroom property “offers its new owner to transform it into a dream home, combining the charm of Kinsale’s surroundings with the security of a gated community in this thriving coastal town”.

VERDICT: Well-set 18B is a perfect lock-up and leave purchase, or trade-down option if you can afford it, and where next occupants can watch the super-wealthy motor in, jet in, or sail in.