Is Kinsale Ireland’s most expensive town to buy a home in 2025?
It's the stuff of legends, the days in England, when lodging houses supposedly had signs in windows saying ‘No Irish need apply.’ Is Kinsale’s property market getting close to the same point? A cursory scan of prices in estate agency windows and online property portals for places with a Kinsale address certainly might give that clear impression — of the 60 to 70 sale offers in and around Kinsale and the coastline, 15 of them have asking prices in excess of €1 million, and with buyers often jetting or sailing in from overseas. Some 15, or up to a quarter of the current available supply to purchase, are priced in excess of €1m?? Yup, only in Kinsale, where the Price Register shows over 70 sales of Kinsale address properties fetching that sum, and more. There’s been over a dozen fetch in excess of €2m, with several having make just over and under €5m (up to €5.5 million for a modern build, Seaspray in Scilly, ye gods). Of that 70+ current available to buy listings (71 this week on Myhome, 58 listings on Daft), increasingly more and more of the tally offered at this not inconsiderable sum are new-builds, such as Watersland and The Belvedere, whilst large villas up on the Ramparts — on the old Mercy Convent site — will set blistering new multi-million euro price levels for new stock in Munster once completed and throw Kinsale’s high-end home maket back into national and even international headlines. Ever before those vast villas launched at the convent, various analysts show Kinsale to be among the very priciest locations for property anywhere on the island of Ireland. Thanks to several high-end schemes at present, the average price for new-builds in Kinsale is put at €717,000, while the average for all stock (new and second-hand) from mid-2023 to mid-2024 was €529,000, with the CSO putting Kinsale median prices at €452,000. That CSO median c.€450k level is where ‘entry-level’ new three-bed homes around Kinsale have been likely to start ‘from’. If there is, or was, a blessing over the past few frenetic years, it was that Kinsale had started to offer new builds at a good/reasonable price points for families and first-time buyers back almost a decade ago, with the likes of Gannon Homes delivering over 130 homes at Kinsale Manor from 2017. Here, prices had started at €310,000 to €340,000 for three-beds: they now come on the resale market from €490,000 to €530,000.The stylish and beautifully finished homes at Abbey Fort are a good example of the lifestyle that Kinsale has to offer. Following on from Kinsale Manor and continuing to tap into the more ‘affordable’ end of pricy Kinsale came the likes of Abbey Fort: last offers here of new, A-rated 102 sq ft three-bed homes were at €435,000, but that was for mid-terraced ones. Last Abbey Fort three-bed semi-ds sold out at €485,000/€490,000, says Paul Hannon, Sherry FitzGerald director of new homes.Abbey Fort is now closed out after 150 sales were chalked up via Sherry Fitz over the past three years, at prices from c €300,000 to the strongest of late for four-beds at €535,000. As Abbey Fort (plus creche, due to open soon) now wraps up, a further new scheme, Park Laurence in a field immediately north and accessed through Abbey Fort, will have a mix of 86 two-three and four-bed townhouses and semi-ds designed by Wilson Architects, who also did Kinsale Manor.Inside one of the stylishly finished homes at Abbey Fort, Kinsale. Park Laurence construction has commenced and the first release is likely to be late summer/early autumn and “will be a high quality residential development located adjacent to the successful Abbey Fort scheme which is walking distance of Kinsale Town Centre. We expect strong interest in these homes given their excellent specification and location,” says Donna Ryan Pender of Sherry FitzGerald New Homes. Prices of this Port Laurence launch are not yet indicated, and while two-beds will now clearly be ‘entry level’, and terraced will be next, might the standard and much-loved three-bed semi-d start just under, or much over €500,000? The agents expect a good range to be under the €500k mark at least and say “there’s is a good mix of townhouses and semis so there should be homes qualifying for the FTB incentives”. Meanwhile, older existing three-bed stock can be bought in the mid-to-late €300ks around Kinsale at the likes of Rose Abbey, The Orchards or Springmount, where a one-bed in the same estate starts at €195,000, one of the very cheapest listings locally at present. Nationwide, supply in 2025 appears to be on a broad par with last year, at just over 12,000 listings, but this is less than half what it was before the coronavirus hit in 2020 when available stock stood at 25,000 second hand homes, according to this week’s daft report (and remember that Kinsale has just a meagre 58 offers on that portal right now with 15 of those in the €1m+ price echelon!). As if the current Irish property market wasn’t enough of a struggle for average Irish (and other) families, with asking prices nationally up 12% (however, up by ‘just’ 8% overall in Cork), they have now risen by a whopping 40% since the start of the coronavirus five years ago. Demand at the ‘lower’ end of the market in Kinsale is very broad, including locals, those working in ever expanding Eli Lilly at Dunderrow, commuters to and from Cork city and those working in the Airport Business Park, as well as lifestyle relocators, retirees/downsizers, and international buyers seeking coastal living and convenience to a city, airport and third level institutions. Want even more glum news? The rental market is even tougher right now, with a search on Myhome this week showing 0, zero, nada, nought available to let, whether you are Irish or from well out of town.
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