Reasons to buy a bungalow in Ballincollig, County Cork

Ballincollig is a growing town with a population of around 20,000. The city lies approximately five miles west of Cork city, just off the Ballincollig turnoff. There are plenty of amenities in Ballincollig to tempt a potential buyer, including a multiplex, library, playgrounds, and a newly opened shopping mall.

There are four primary schools, two secondary schools and as Ballincollig is close to Cork city, University College Cork is easily accessible. Ballincollig is also close to Cork City’s main hospital, Cork University Hospital. A children’s activity center has recently been built with a synthetic skating rink offering skating on a plastic surface. The Oriel Hotel and Leisure Center offers facilities including a swimming pool, gym and many other classes available such as dance classes. There are many active sports clubs in the town including the GAA Club, Basketball, Soceer and a pitch and putt green on the outskirts. The Lee Valley Golf Club is also very close to the city. Public transport is also present in Ballincollig with buses running to and from Cork City regularly. Cork Airport is about a twenty minute drive from the city. Ballincollig Castle, situated to the south-west of the town, dating to at least the 15th century, though now in ruins and on private land, is visible from the Ballincollig turnoff.

Walking trails have been opened up by Cork County Council on the grounds of the old gunpowder mills, close to the old canals and it is popular with many tourists and Ballincollig residents who come here for a leisurely stroll, where some of the mill ruins can still be seen. The Mills employed hundreds of workers in the late 19th century, but when it closed Ballincollig became a small town with a few hundred residents.

In the 1970s many housing developments sprang up around the old village and continued into the late 1980s and 1990s. It was when the old army barracks, with its massive land mass, was sold for development that Ballincollig grew in size and population. Subsequently, land in Ballincollig has become very expensive in recent years so house prices have skyrocketed with apartments and small townhouses being built on very small plots in order to use the land much more profitably. So there is a shortage of bungalows for sale in Ballincollig so any that come on the market are snapped up pretty quickly. The main reason for this is that the bungalows tend to be on larger plots allowing for extensions to be added over the years, there is also greater privacy as the bungalows are usually detached.

Owning a bungalow has many advantages, such as a bungalow is a house that has only one story, so any plan to modify the interior is much easier than a two-story one, since there are fewer supporting walls in a bungalow. Anyone with reduced or disabled mobility will find an ideal home in a bungalow where all the rooms are easily accessible, since removing walls or expanding doors is much easier and cheaper to carry out than a two-story house. There are more possibilities to change a gloomy looking bungalow into a light, airy and open plan living area than the conventional house, as bungalows are much more adaptable to design change than any other form of housing.

Another advantage would be that the bungalows tend to be on larger sites than the usual semi-detached or two-story houses. This will give the homeowner space to add any necessary extensions or conservatory without taking too much of the garden. But make sure you have full planning permission to carry out any external construction to your bungalow. There is also more privacy in owning a bungalow as they usually come separate so carefully planted trees and shrubs around the property lines will create a very private home.

As bungalows need more land to build on, they are rarely found in suburban areas where land is expensive and much more densely populated than rural areas, therefore bungalows near cities are a rare find and will hold their value.

Bungalows tend to be less expensive to operate as a house than regular two-story ones, since no heat is lost upstairs, once the attic is well insulated. Gutter and window cleaning is easy compared to the alternative and general maintenance such as wall painting is a piece of cake. There is also a cozier, more comfortable feeling to living in a bungalow, since all of life takes place on one floor. So if you are looking for a bungalow for sale in Cork, consider first the location, Ballincollig, then the style of the house, bungalow, as your first choice, you will not be disappointed.