Number 219 Glasaree Road, in Finglas, Dublin 11, has a modest exterior that conceals a comfortable, very well decorated and maintained house that could appeal strongly to a first-time buyer. The standard Dublin Corporation terraced house has been considerably extended and improved, and is now for sale at £100,000 through Douglas Newman Good.

Appealing features include extensive storage space, and recessed lighting on a wide range of shelves and cupboards, as well as spotlights in upstairs bedrooms. Its principal attraction is at the back of the house, where an open-plan kitchen/dining-room opens into a good-sized, comfortable conservatory which serves as a sitting-room. The conservatory, in turn, opens into a sunny back garden, overlooked only by a small scheme of housing for elderly people.

There are plenty of trees and greenery making the back private. The kitchen has fitted teak units.

The living-room at the front has built-in cupboards on both sides of the fireplace, some with glass-fronted doors, and all with recessed lighting, the legacy of the previous owner. A smart, new red carpet covers the hall, stairs and upstairs landing, and is included in the sale.

Upstairs, the two double bedrooms have more than enough storage space in units built around the bed spaces; in the small single, there is a built-in bed with drawers underneath it, as well as cupboards.

There is space for parking a car at the front of the house, which is about a 10-minute walk from Finglas village, pretty much beside a number of schools - a primary school in one direction, and Beneavin College, a secondary school, in the other.

It takes only about 15 minutes to get into Dublin city centre by bus, according to the owner, while the M50 is nearby, just beyond the village.

When we visited Finglas a year ago in search of starter homes, agents reported a trend for first-time buyers who had grown up in Glasnevin to look for homes in this huge suburb. By now, that trend seems to have become a well-established pattern, with the inevitable result that prices in the Finglas area have risen at pretty much the same rate as elsewhere in the city.

It is still, however, possible to get a reasonably-sized three-bed former local authority house for between £90,000 and £120,000/£130,000, depending on location. The rule of thumb basically is: the nearer Glasnevin, the more expensive, the further away, the cheaper. And yet even Finglas West and South - the areas of Finglas bordering Ratoath Road, and furthest away from Glasnevin - are changing, with the development of popular new housing developments like Dunsoghly and Eastwood Park. The 24 back-to-back two-bed townhouses in Eastwood Park, next door to the Patrician College, sold quickly when they went on the market last spring at £75,000.

Some 70 houses in the Dunsoghly development, nearly opposite on the far side of Ratoath Road, launched last October with prices ranging from just under £100,000 to nearly £104,000, sold out in the first weekend. Next month, another 57 will go on sale. Ross McParland, the agency handling the sales, says that prices have not yet been fixed for the new three-bedroom and four-bed semis, but it must be assumed that they will have gone up by at least 10 per cent.

About 60 per cent of the Dunsoghly buyers came from the Finglas area, according to the Ross McParland agency, with the remaining 40 per cent of buyers coming from areas as far away as Lucan, Leixlip and Navan. This vote of confidence by developers and buyers must have been a boost for an area that many will agree has had an image problem.

Finglas, a north-west Co Dublin village 50 years ago, was developed mainly in the 1950s as a large local authority housing area. Now it has a population of 60,000, and like all other areas, neighbourhoods ranging from the neat and beautifully kept to the more ragged and unkempt. There are areas such as Lakeglen, for example, a neighbourhood near the Tolka Valley Park, that has won awards for its attractiveness.

Prices can vary by more than 20 per cent, depending on where a house is located: Siobhan McNulty of Douglas Newman Good reports getting £125,000 recently for a house in Finglas Park, an area bounded by Ballygall Road and McKee Road that is a mix of privately built and former local authority houses. The house at Glasaree Road, not far away from Finglas Road, on the other side of Ballygall Road, on the other hand, is priced at £100,000-plus. Roads such as Clancy, Sycamore and McKee are all considered "good" roads, as is Oakwood, near the Finglas/Ballymun border - Mason Estates has a house on the corner of Jamestown Road and Oakwood with a price tag of £140,000.

There is no denying that there are stretches of Finglas that are bleak - just as now much-sought-after Cabra and Crumlin can be bleak too, with row upon row of unlovely 1950s corporation housing. But there are also areas with well-kept green spaces, and everywhere, views of the Dublin hills.

Siobhan McNulty, who grew up and still lives in Finglas, points to the great community spirit of the area, and its large number of schools and sporting facilities, like the swimming-pool. Fiona McGann of Mason Estates, which opened an office in Finglas village, near Superquinn, last July - the only estate agent based in Finglas - says that the area has matured and grown considerably in the seven years since she has been selling houses there. Finglas village itself is an attractive and busy shopping area.