One-bed Elysian apartment hits market for €400k — half the price of last year’s resale

IF YOU missed out on the first-ever open market apartment resale last summer in the emblematic Elysian block in the heart of Cork City, well, here’s a second chance — and it can be yours for half the price.

Freshly up for sale this month is No 124 The Elysian, a one-bed apartment opening onto a screened deck on the building’s broad southern façade just east of the 17-storey apartment tower.

The natural evergreen shrub screening on balconies here is noted when approaching Cork City centre, just before City Hall, from the south city link road, where also notable in a different apartment window is the log updated daily that records how many days the war in Ukraine has been going on.

Sadly, the sentinel note is tipping toward 1,100 days this weekend as the three year anniversary of the invasion by Russia has just been passed.

Listed this week is apartment No 124 The Elysian, and it’s a south-aspected, one-bed apartment of 643 sq ft, in good condition, one of less than a dozen of the individually/privately-owned apartments in the approximately 214-unit development done by the O’Flynn Group and finished in 2008.

The vast majority of apartments are owned by investment fund Kennedy Wilson, who secured most of the Elysian in 2018 for €67.7m, including commercial units and around 200 apartments for the rental market: total deal was €87m.

The first resale of a privately owned apartment here was last year, when No 108 on the Elysian tower section’s 11th floor came for sale. That was a quality three-bed, three-bath apartment of around 1,500 sq ft, owned by a Dublin family and came on offer at €825,000.

It sold via Sherry FitzGerald for a recorded €842,500 by year’s end — most of the interest was for private occupation rather than from investors.

Selling agents again now for 108 are Sherry FitzGerald, whose Stuart O’Grady lists the one-bed, one bath No 124 at €400,000 — so less than half the price of the three-bed 108, and less than half its 1,50 0sq ft size too.

It shares the same prestige address and access to the acre of landscaped elevated courtyard garden with walkway, and the sale includes one basement level car parking space.

Service charges are €3,600, which include gym membership, concierge services, and access to the Elysian workstation/business centre plus services.

Owned privately and likely to have been an investment, it is well-presented with chestnut wood flooring in the main, quartz kitchen tops, has a C1 BER, and has a wall-mounted electric flame effect fire. 

It comes with gas central heating and likely solar gain from the balcony’s sliding patio door by the living area, with kitchen deeper in on a tiled floor section with an island. Auctioneer Stuart O’Grady expects owner-occupier interest mainly — either for traders-down or for occasional second home base.

VERDICT: Everyone in Cork knows where the Elysian is, but taller towers are mooted in the wings — including on the old Sextant/Carey Tools site, just east of the Elysian, at 24 storeys for 217 units.