This Fingal fixer upper not for the faint hearted for €180,000

Sweet mother of Jonah and all the saints. Here’s a fixer upper to keep you busy. This cottage on Corduff Road outside Lusk, Co Dublin, could be yours for €180,000. A roofless shell on the side of a narrow Fingal road, the promotional text optimistically refers to a “huge opportunity to build your dream home” and a residence oozing with potential (we can only imagine).

Surely then the value is tied to the expansive lands on which the property sits? Not quite. Those rolling plains amount to just a quarter acre and a small paddock across the road. Furthermore the building is an original farm cottage, dating from the 1800s, and as a protected structure any new owner will need to work with the existing façade in any planning permission they seek for that dream home.

But the Corduff cottage has never been better value. On the market since earlier this year, it had been seeking €200,000 prior to a €20,000 price drop on Tuesday. According to selling agent Fidelma Doran of REA Cumisky the cottage – an executor sale – offers value as she regularly sees lots of demand for sites in this tranquil country setting in the heart of rural Fingal. Doran says a neighbouring site was purchased in recent times where new owners built a substantial contemporary home, and she believes this site will have similar appeal.