Stoneybatter serves up a classic corner store for €550k

Stoneybatter’s mainly two-up, two-down housing stock may be postcard pretty but one of the problems is that couples who set up home here find they outgrow the houses once they start a family.

Number 58 Sitric Road, formerly a grocery store, offers space and light in abundance.

The traditional corner-sited shop also comes with a great back story. It has been used as a set for many well-known Irish productions including Educating Rita, based on Willy Russell’s stage play of the same name; Circle of Friends, an adaptation of the Maeve Binchy novel and Falling For A Dancer, starring Liam Cunningham.

Most likely built by the Dublin Artisans’ Dwellings Company, the property dates from 1900. Its shop entrance and porch are to the front, on Sitric Road, but the residence is accessed from an entrance on Sitric Place, around the corner. The “shop” is to the left of its small hall. Washed in light by two large picture windows, the “shop” also features a wood-burning stove in the corner and lovely pitch pine floorboards underfoot. These feature throughout the property. The ceiling here is also stained timber.

A second, smaller room is to the right of the hall and leads through to a scullery-style kitchen with a back door that opens out to a small, north-facing yard giving you valuable off-street vehicular parking.

Measuring 106sq m (1,140sq ft), the property is the size of a decent suburban semi and has three good-sized double bedrooms upstairs along with a family bathroom where there is a freestanding bath and separate shower.

There is very little like it for sale in the area or indeed anywhere else in the city, which may explain its bullish asking price, €550,000, through agents The Property Shop.

The only local comparable property in the area was Maureen’s, a much more modern local shop that was for sale on nearby Manor Place. It had been asking €595,000 through agents SherryFitzGerald but has been withdrawn. It was smaller in size, 77sq m (828sq ft) including a one-bedroom apartment upstairs.

Prices for the neighbouring two-up, two-downs have stabilised in the last 12 months. The houses for sale within these artisan streets range in size from 48sq m (517sq ft) to an average of about 94sq m (1,012sq ft) with asking prices listed from €275,000 to €445,000, depending on condition with some recent price reductions of about €20,000.