Own in a Charming Irish Coastal Village from €150,000

As I write from my living room here in Cork in southern Ireland, I can glimpse the garden beyond the patio doors. At this time of year, it’s a menagerie of butterflies, rustling trees, and lush green grass. Truly idyllic.

It’s been wonderful to be on home soil…

Since arriving in Ireland several weeks ago, I’ve been busy catching up with friends and family and exploring the countryside.

It’s hard to describe just how special Ireland is when the sun is out…

For much of the winter, Ireland is shrouded in heavy gray cloud, but the arrival of warm summer days casts a magnificent glow on everything. The Atlantic turns a brilliant aquatic blue, the heather and gorse that adorn the hillsides burst with resplendent yellows and purples, and the entire landscape blooms with life.

The countryside here is magical.

It’s also home to some hidden gems—overlooked towns and villages where you can enjoy a blissful rural lifestyle. Today, I want to tell you about one of these villages in particular…

Ireland in the sunshine is a sight to behold…

Yesterday, I was on the road here…

I traveled to Lahinch in Co. Clare to golf with a developer friend who’s staying in Adare Manor. He’d flown in from Mexico with some friends to visit this renowned resort.

Adare Manor in County Limerick is one of Europe’s most prestigious golf and hotel communities. This is a former home for me… I previously lived there and was a member of the golf club. It’s also the site of one of the coolest crisis opportunities I found in Ireland.

Back in 2014, I made a recommendation to my Real Estate Trend Alert group to own townhomes in this premium golf resort for €125,000 or less (about $166,250 at the time). Adare Manor was in financial trouble back then, but a noted investor you might have heard of (billionaire horse racing magnate J.P. McManus) swooped in.

Now Adare Manor has been transformed. It was named the best resort in Europe by Condé Nast for 2022 and 2023. And it’s set to host the 2027 Ryder Cup, one of the most prestigious tournaments in golf.

Today, the townhomes I recommended have largely been bought up by the resort and rent for a whopping €1,450 per night and up. (Expect to pay €2,750 per night on weekends in summer.)

In 2014, I recommended townhomes at the Adare Manor golf resort for €125,000 (about $166,250 at the time). Today, they rent for €1,450 per night and up.

Adare Manor is not the hidden gem that I want to tell you about today (anywhere that’s about to host the Ryder Cup is hardly hidden).

But Adare Manor has brought to mind this hidden gem since both have been revived by a wealthy benefactor.

The village of Ballycotton is about a 35-minute drive from my home in southeastern Ireland.

This charming coastal community is to the east of Cork, Ireland’s second-largest city. It’s famed for its cliff walk and traditional harbor. This is idyllic small-town Ireland.

The coast of County Cork has long been a favored destination for vacationers and second-home owners in Ireland. And demand has been spiking higher in recent years, particularly since COVID and the acceleration of the work-from-home revolution.

Most people, though, head to towns and villages to the west of Cork city. Places like Kinsale.

Once overlooked, the town of Kinsale now has boutique hotels, a big selection of fine-dining restaurants, and houses that sell for millions of dollars. Check out this four-bed house in a new development in Kinsale priced at €1.5 million ($1.62 million).

The coast of County Cork has long been a popular destination for vacationers and second-home owners, though towns and villages to the west of Cork city like Kinsale are far more popular than those to the east.

Ballycotton was among the many overlooked villages to the east of Cork city. Then a one-man “Path of Progress” event started transforming it.

A Path of Progress is anything that improves the accessibility of real estate and increases its value.

Infrastructure like roads, bridges, airports, air, and rail routes can do this. Anything that improves amenities in an area can have the same effect too, like a major new resort where previously there were only small hotels or hostels.

In Ballycotton, the Path of Progress began when a prominent son came home…

The small idyllic village of Ballycotton sits on a cliff overlooking Ireland’s breathtaking southern Atlantic coast.

Pearse Flynn grew up in Ballycotton, spending his childhood days fishing for crabs and lobster along the coast here. As an adult, he found huge success in the corporate world in the U.K.

Flynn made a fortune in tech and finance. At the height of the dotcom boom, he oversaw the sale of Newbridge Networks to Alcatel for almost €8 billion. He now owns 14 companies in financial services, real estate and renewable energy.

Over the past decade, Flynn has been investing lots of his own money in his hometown. He spent millions buying and renovating St. Colman’s church, turning it into a restaurant and live music venue called Sea Church.

He also launched a fine-dining restaurant with an adjoining pub called Cush. And he owns a large mansion overlooking the town.

This investment, combined with the growing interest in living in rural settings, has led to something of a revival here.

There are luxurious, modern houses going up in the area. Take this expansive, 2,300-square-foot four-bed house about a 10-minute drive from Ballycotton village. It’s on the market for €600,000 ($649,000).

This large, modern home near Ardnahinch Bay was built just last year. Listing here.

Beyond the new-builds, prices have also been rising for older properties.

This large detached house is within Ballycotton village. A four-bedroom home, it’s set on a one-acre site and offers panoramic views over Ballycotton Bay. It needs works, yet it’s listed at a whopping €950,000 ($1.03 million).

Spanning 1,200 square feet, this home was built in the 1950s and overlooks the ocean. It’s on the market for €950,000. Listing here.

That’s not to say there aren’t more reasonably priced options in this area.

There’s this two-bed, two-bath fixer-upper outside of town. It’s in poor condition but it’s got potential and it’s walking distance from the coast. It’s listed for €150,000 ($162,000).

And just outside the village is this quaint two-bed detached house. It spans more than 1,000-square-feet and sits on a generous one-acre plot. It’s on the market for €250,000 ($270,000).

This detached home is just over a mile from Ballycotton and close to several beaches. Listing here.

Ballycotton’s rebirth is a reminder that even within a highly developed market like Ireland, there can be overlooked communities…hidden gems with big potential.

The right home in this area would be an incredible lifestyle play, given the stunning natural beauty of the coastline here and the proximity to Cork city. It might even be a decent investment if Ballycotton continues its rebirth.

Though to be clear, none of the homes above would approach the level of a RETA-grade deal.

For an opportunity to be RETA-grade, I have to expect you’ll conservatively double your cash invested within five years. I particularly love deals that offer rapid appreciation and enormous income potential should we chose to rent upon delivery.

RETA-grade opportunities are now exceptionally rare in Ireland. The days of crisis opportunities like those I found in Adare Manor are long gone. The country now has a chronic housing shortage. This is a seller’s market.

For incredible bargains and big gains, you need to look elsewhere…such as a hidden gem on the coast of Mexico.

This Saturday, I’ll be sharing a video by one of my contacts in Mexico. Recently, he visited a stunning beach town…a place where cactus-studded hills roll down to glorious white-sand beaches and glistening turquoise waters.

This is a destination I’ve scouted numerous times in the past several years and that I believe has an incredible future. Yet, right now, we can own amazing homes here for prices like $138,000.

In his video, my contact takes you on a tour of this destination and shows you several incredible listings there from prices like these.

Check out your Overseas Dream Home this Saturday for all the details…

Ronan

Ronan McMahon, Founder, Overseas Dream Home & Real Estate Trend Alert

P.S. Soon my team will be scouting northern Portugal! Next week, two of my scouts, Ciaran and Alan, will be on the road, traveling to stunning, under-the-radar towns on Portugal’s northern coast including Viana do Castelo and Caminha.

Do you have a question you’d like to them to answer while they’ve got boots on the ground? Maybe you’ve visited the region before and have a recommendation? We’d love to hear it. Let us know here.

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Transparency is important to us. So you should know that properties and development projects detailed in this website and in Real Estate Trend Alert (RETA) may be clients of Pangaea Limited trading as Pangea, a real estate advertising company managed by Ronan McMahon [and Margaret Summerfield]. Should you purchase one of the properties, Pangaea may receive an advertising fee from the real estate developers, real estate agents and/or property owners. International Living Publishing Limited (“International Living”), which publishes RETA, and certain marketing companies who work with Pangaea may receive a portion of that fee. MoXi is the brand name for a group of companies organized in Mexico and the United States which offers mortgage loan origination services, including on some properties detailed by Pangea, and is in the same group as International Living.

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