See what went wrong for property buyers in Dublin

Should you buy in Ringsend before Poolbeg is finished?

Is Poolbeg actually happening now, or could the project still stall?

Poolbeg is happening now. The uncertainty is about how fast the rest gets built, not whether the old Glass Bottle site will become a major new Dublin neighbourhood.

The first 212-home Lime House phase has already been completed. Another 586 homes secured permission earlier this year, and the Glass Bottle Consortium subsequently applied for another 1,510 apartments across six buildings of six to 18 storeys. That latest application covers a much larger 3.89-hectare section of the site and includes shops, a crèche, community space, artists' studios and a coastal park.

There is still genuine planning risk around that next jump in scale. Dublin City Council requested additional information on the 1,510-home application rather than approving it immediately. So we should distinguish between the homes already delivered or permitted and the much larger block of supply still moving through the system.

The financial commitment is another useful clue. Pembroke Beach DAC's accounts showed assets under development rising from about €369 million to €562 million during 2024, alongside more than €440 million of loans. Developers can change plans, but hundreds of millions already tied up in the site make a wholesale abandonment increasingly difficult to imagine.

Poolbeg evidence	Scale	Where it stands	What we can reasonably conclude
Lime House	212 homes	Completed	People can already live in the new district
Further approved homes	586	Permission secured	The build-out is continuing
Quadrant A4 proposal	1,510 apartments	Additional information requested	Big expansion likely, but timing is uncertain
Wider Glass Bottle plan	About 3,800 homes	Multi-phase	Poolbeg could become a neighbourhood of city-scale importance

How much could Poolbeg actually change Ringsend?

Poolbeg is big enough to change Ringsend noticeably because the planned neighbourhood is comparable in scale to several thousand existing households arriving almost next door.

The wider former Glass Bottle and Fabrizia lands are expected to accommodate around 3,800 homes, while the latest 1,510-unit proposal alone says it could house roughly 4,000 people. It also includes 753 one-bedroom apartments, 636 two-bedroom apartments, 93 three-bedroom homes and 28 studios.

That is enough people to support shops, childcare, services, public space and better transport links. Ringsend would sit beside a sizeable extension of the Docklands rather than beside a largely industrial peninsula.

The biggest change will probably be how the area feels day to day. Ringsend already has the city-centre location. Poolbeg can fill in some of the empty or industrial land between the village and Dublin Bay and bring far more everyday activity east of the Dodder.

Is Ringsend still cheap enough to benefit from Poolbeg?

Ringsend still trades below some nearby Dublin 4 locations, but anyone expecting an undiscovered regeneration bargain is already late.

Daft's current 12-month snapshot puts the average Ringsend sale at about €545,800 and roughly €7,700 per square metre. The median asking price is around €575,000, with two-bedroom houses also sitting around that €575,000 mark. There are currently about 40 properties listed for sale, and apartments make up roughly 60% of that stock.

Recent house sales show the stronger end of the market much more clearly. A 72 m² terrace at 2 Pigeon House Road sold for €615,000. An 83 m² home on Cambridge Avenue reached €656,000. A 93.9 m² house on Bremen Road fetched €698,500. More recently, 73 Ringsend Road sold for €810,000 and 35 Aikenhead Terrace for €765,000.

Those prices already contain a serious premium for Dublin 4, Grand Canal Dock access and the expectation that this whole side of the city will keep improving. Poolbeg can still add value, but buyers today are definitely not getting the regeneration story for free.

Recent Ringsend sale	Size	Asking price	Sale price	Premium to asking
2 Pigeon House Road	72 m²	€550,000	€615,000	11.8%
8 Cambridge Avenue	83 m²	€550,000	€656,000	19.3%
42 Bremen Road	93.9 m²	€595,000	€698,500	17.4%
35 Aikenhead Terrace	100 m²	€675,000	€765,000	13.3%
73 Ringsend Road	92 m²	€775,000	€810,000	4.5%

Are buyers still fighting over Ringsend houses today?

Yes. Good Ringsend houses are still attracting aggressive bids, even though the area's average asking-price data has softened.

Daft says Ringsend properties have sold around 8.8% above asking on average over the latest 12 months. That tells us more about current demand than simply looking at asking prices, which are about 4.9% lower than in the preceding period.

The individual deals are even clearer. Cambridge Avenue went almost 20% above asking. Bremen Road went about 17% over. Pigeon House Road added nearly 12%. A 60 m² house on Gordon Street sold for €682,500 after being marketed at €595,000, while Doris Street reached €790,000 from €675,000.

There are exceptions. A 56 m² home at St Patrick's Villas sold for €465,000 from a €485,000 ask, so buyers will still reject the wrong price or the wrong property. But across the better recent houses, bidding remains too strong to argue that Poolbeg construction is creating a broad buyer discount.

Will the Dodder Bridge make Ringsend much better connected?

Yes, the Dodder Bridge could materially improve Ringsend because it would create a direct public-transport, walking and cycling link toward Sir John Rogerson's Quay.

Today the Dodder still creates an awkward break between Ringsend and the eastern Docklands. The planned opening bridge would connect the Ringsend/Poolbeg side directly with Sir John Rogerson's Quay, shortening trips that currently feel strangely indirect given how close the two areas are geographically.

Dublin City Council's latest update says the bridge is at detailed-design stage, with advance-works procurement and land coordination under way. Construction is anticipated from early 2027, although funding and Maritime Area Consent remain conditions.

We would treat that timetable as plausible rather than guaranteed. An earlier council update had envisaged works starting sooner, while the newer schedule has slipped. Buyers should not build a purchase price around a precise opening year.

For Ringsend property values, the useful part is simpler: the bridge is far enough advanced to count as credible upside, but still uncertain enough that buyers should avoid paying as though the connection already exists.

Is Seán Moore Road finally being fixed?

Seán Moore Road is moving closer to a real upgrade, but Ringsend buyers still face several years before the corridor becomes what Poolbeg needs.

Dublin City Council currently has the roughly one-kilometre scheme at concept development and option selection. The plan includes better footpaths, segregated cycling facilities and provision for stronger public transport, potentially including a future Luas extension. Planning is expected in 2027, with construction currently anticipated later that year.

There has also been physical work on the ground lately. The council commissioned boreholes, trial trenches and pavement cores along Seán Moore Road during the summer to understand ground conditions and utilities before the design progresses. That does not mean construction has started, but it is more concrete than another policy document.

Poolbeg's later occupation is now explicitly tied to transport delivery. Under the amended planning scheme, Phase 2 buildings can be constructed before every transport project is complete, but they cannot be occupied until specified infrastructure is ready. Those requirements include the Seán Moore Road upgrade, replacement of Seán Moore Roundabout, the Dodder Bridge and improved pedestrian and cycling facilities at Tom Clarke Bridge.

Transport project	Where it is now	Current timing	How much confidence should buyers have?
Dodder Bridge	Detailed design	Construction targeted from 2027	Fairly high that it happens, lower on exact timing
Seán Moore Road	Options/concept stage	Planning expected 2027	Real project, still early
Seán Moore Roundabout replacement	Required by SDZ phasing	Linked to later Poolbeg occupation	Important but timing remains less clear
Tom Clarke Bridge active-travel works	Separate Docklands project progressing	Construction expected later	Long-term rather than immediate upside

Could Poolbeg make Ringsend traffic worse before it gets better?

Yes. Traffic and roadworks are probably the clearest short-term downside to buying on the Poolbeg side of Ringsend today.

Thousands of new homes are planned beyond Seán Moore Road while the same corridor must continue serving existing residents and the southern port area. Dublin City Council itself says the current infrastructure does not meet the area's future transport and accessibility needs.

The sequencing creates an awkward middle period. Buildings can now progress before every road and bridge project is finished, even though later occupation remains tied to those upgrades. Construction traffic, utility works, bridge works and road redesigns can therefore overlap for years.

The recent ground investigations already required temporary lane closures, stop-go traffic management and warnings of delays. Full construction will obviously be more intrusive than survey work.

This risk changes sharply street by street. A quiet house deeper inside the established village can still gain from the new neighbourhood while avoiding much of the direct construction traffic. Properties facing or feeding directly onto Seán Moore Road and Pigeon House Road deserve a bigger discount.

Will thousands of new Poolbeg apartments hurt existing Ringsend property prices?

Poolbeg's apartment boom is a real competitive risk for older Ringsend apartments, while traditional houses should be much better protected.

The latest 1,510-unit plan is overwhelmingly made up of one- and two-bedroom apartments. Add the earlier Poolbeg phases and we are talking about a large new pool of modern homes with strong energy ratings, lifts, balconies, newer communal areas and contemporary layouts.

An older two-bedroom apartment in Ringsend will increasingly compete against that stock when buyers compare homes around the Docklands. Today, apartments already account for around 60% of properties listed for sale in the broader Ringsend market on Daft. A large wave of nearby new-build supply gives buyers even more choice within the same broad location.

Traditional Ringsend houses have a cleaner scarcity story. Poolbeg can build another thousand apartments; it cannot build another Cambridge Avenue, Gordon Street or Bremen Road with the same established streets and small-house character.

That is why we think the best way to invest around Poolbeg is through housing that Poolbeg itself cannot easily replicate.

Property bought today	Competition from Poolbeg	Scarcity	Our view
Traditional Ringsend terrace	Low	High	Best positioned
Larger renovated Ringsend house	Low	Very high	Strong, if price is sensible
Older two-bed apartment	High	Low	Much more price-sensitive
Premium modern apartment	High	Medium	Needs a clear quality or location edge
New Poolbeg apartment	Competes with future phases	Medium	Depends heavily on entry price

Will Poolbeg actually make Ringsend nicer to live in?

Probably yes, and this is one of the easier parts of the investment case to believe.

The newest Poolbeg application contains eight retail units, a crèche, a community hub, artists' studios, public spaces, a coastal park and another section of the walking and cycling route. Those facilities sit alongside housing for thousands of additional residents rather than serving a tiny standalone scheme.

Ringsend already has pubs, shops, schools, sports clubs and an established village. What it lacks to the east is the density of everyday activity found around the more mature parts of Dublin Docklands. Poolbeg fills part of that gap.

We should not assume that every café or shop in old Ringsend suddenly gets thousands of new customers. The new district will contain plenty of its own services. Even so, turning neighbouring industrial land into streets, homes, parks and shops should improve the broader walking environment and make this corner of Dublin feel less peripheral.

For an owner-occupier planning to stay ten years, that improvement in daily life may be more reliable than trying to predict exactly how many percentage points Poolbeg adds to the resale price.

Will Dublin Port keep dragging down the Ringsend investment case?

Dublin Port will remain part of life around Poolbeg, so buyers expecting the peninsula to turn into a quiet residential waterfront are buying the wrong story.

The port's 3FM scheme is the third and final major project in its Masterplan 2040 programme. Dublin Port intends to keep developing major infrastructure on the peninsula as it moves toward its ultimate planned capacity.

Industrial and logistics activity does not disappear as the Glass Bottle site fills with apartments. Trucks, port access, large infrastructure and working waterfront uses remain part of the landscape.

There is a positive side. The wider port plans include new transport infrastructure intended to separate some port movements from local streets and improve walking and cycling connections. But the land-use tension remains: Ringsend and Poolbeg are becoming more residential while sitting directly beside Ireland's largest port.

We would care a lot about the exact view, road exposure and walking route of the property. Two Ringsend homes only a few hundred metres apart can have very different relationships with port traffic.

Should flood risk make you avoid Ringsend?

Flood risk should make you selective in Ringsend, not automatically rule the neighbourhood out.

Ringsend sits between the Liffey, Dodder and Dublin Bay, and flood risk has been built directly into the Poolbeg planning process. Dublin City's flood assessment covers coastal, river, surface-water and infrastructure-related flooding, which tells us the issue is substantial enough to require site-specific treatment.

New infrastructure is also being designed around that reality. The proposed replacement building for St Patrick's Rowing Club under the Dodder Bridge project uses levels intended to handle a one-in-200-year storm event with an allowance for future climate change.

For an actual purchase, the postcode-level discussion is almost useless. We would check the individual house against official flood mapping, ask about previous insurance claims and flooding, look at floor levels and have the surveyor investigate drainage and past water ingress.

A beautiful Ringsend house with awkward insurance or a known flood history can be a much worse purchase than a less fashionable street nearby.

Has the Ringsend wastewater problem finally been solved?

The old Ringsend wastewater-capacity problem has improved dramatically, and that removes one of the more serious infrastructure concerns hanging over Dublin development.

Uisce Éireann completed its €550 million Ringsend Wastewater Treatment Plant upgrade earlier this year. Capacity rose from the old 1.64 million population-equivalent design level to about 2.4 million, after years in which the plant repeatedly operated beyond its intended capacity.

The upgraded plant also uses advanced nutrient-removal technology and can process roughly 20% more flow, helping reduce storm overflows during heavy rainfall.

That is a meaningful change for Poolbeg because wastewater capacity had long been one of the constraints on further Dublin housing growth. We would give this more weight than speculative infrastructure such as a future Luas: the money has been spent and the upgrade is operating.

It does not give Dublin infinite capacity. Greater Dublin Drainage is still needed as the region grows. But today's Ringsend buyer faces a materially better wastewater situation than someone assessing the area a few years ago.

Ringsend wastewater plant	Before the full upgrade	Now	Why it matters
Design/treatment capacity	1.64m population equivalent	2.4m	Much more room for growth
Operating history	Frequently above design capacity	Major upgrade complete	Immediate constraint reduced
Investment	—	€550m	Already spent rather than merely proposed
Treatment	Older system	Advanced nutrient removal	Better environmental performance

Is buying close to Poolbeg better than buying deeper inside Ringsend?

Usually no. We would rather own a good house inside established Ringsend and walk to Poolbeg than live directly beside the busiest part of its construction and access network.

The regeneration benefit spreads beyond the boundary of the Glass Bottle site. New shops, parks, bridges and walking routes can be used by residents several streets away. Construction noise, truck movements and roadworks are much more concentrated.

That creates an appealing asymmetry in places such as the established residential streets around Cambridge Avenue, Bremen Road, Gordon Street and parts of Irishtown. Those areas can benefit from a larger and better-connected neighbourhood without sitting directly on the main Poolbeg access corridor.

Prices already vary enough that we would never turn this into a rigid street ranking. Condition, BER, flood exposure, extension potential and the exact side of the street can outweigh a ten-minute difference in walking distance.

Still, if two similar houses cost roughly the same, we would choose the quieter established street over the one closest to the construction gates.

Should you buy a Ringsend house or apartment before Poolbeg is finished?

We would strongly prefer a Ringsend house because Poolbeg strengthens the scarcity of houses while increasing the supply of apartments.

Recent sales show that buyers already pay heavily for that scarcity. As seen above, Cambridge Avenue, Bremen Road and Pigeon House Road houses have recently sold well above asking, while newer transactions include €765,000 at Aikenhead Terrace and €810,000 on Ringsend Road.

Apartment buyers face a different future. The 1,510-home Poolbeg application contains 1,389 one- and two-bedroom apartments alone. That is a very large amount of directly comparable stock before counting other phases.

This does not make every Ringsend apartment a bad purchase. An apartment with an exceptional view, unusually large floor area, low service charges or a superior Grand Canal Dock location can still stand out. But we would demand a better entry price because Poolbeg is about to give future buyers much more choice.

For houses, Poolbeg itself creates no comparable replacement stock. That difference makes the house investment case considerably cleaner.

Is waiting until Poolbeg is finished safer than buying Ringsend now?

Waiting for Poolbeg to be fully finished probably sacrifices too much of the upside because there is no useful single completion date to wait for.

The project now stretches across completed housing, permitted phases, another 1,510 homes seeking permission, the Dodder Bridge, Seán Moore Road works and later Docklands infrastructure. Some pieces could arrive around 2027; others extend toward 2030 and beyond. Dublin Port's own masterplan runs to 2040.

By the time the area feels completely settled, buyers will know far more: how good the public realm is, whether the bridges work as hoped, which shops succeed, how traffic behaves and how Poolbeg apartments trade on the resale market. That certainty will probably be reflected in prices.

Buying now lets us capture some of the remaining uncertainty discount, but only if the property works without heroic assumptions. We would never justify an excessive purchase price by assuming a future Luas, flawless bridge delivery or a huge Poolbeg-driven price jump.

The sensible version is much simpler: buy a Ringsend home that already works today and let Poolbeg improve the surroundings over time.

So, should you buy in Ringsend before Poolbeg is finished?

Yes. For the right house, we think buying Ringsend before Poolbeg is finished is better than waiting, but the opportunity is narrower than the simple “buy before regeneration” story suggests.

Poolbeg has crossed the point where we need to speculate about whether meaningful development will happen. Homes are already completed, hundreds more have permission, another 1,510 are going through planning, the €550 million wastewater upgrade is finished, and Dublin City Council is actively progressing both the Dodder Bridge and Seán Moore Road.

Ringsend prices also tell us that plenty of buyers have noticed. Houses regularly selling around €600,000–€800,000, often above asking, leave much less room for a lazy regeneration bet. Current prices already reward the neighbourhood for being Dublin 4, close to Grand Canal Dock and beside a huge redevelopment site.

Our preferred purchase is an established Ringsend house on a quieter street, with no obvious flood or port-traffic problem, bought at a price that makes sense based on the neighbourhood as it exists today. That property gets exposure to better bridges, more shops, parks, public realm and thousands of new neighbours without competing directly with the thousands of apartments Poolbeg will produce.

We are much less enthusiastic about paying a premium for an ordinary older apartment just because it sits near the Glass Bottle site. Poolbeg will create exactly the kind of modern apartment supply that can compete with it.

So we would buy before completion rather than wait for a perfect finished neighbourhood. The strongest opportunity is in scarce Ringsend houses, while generic apartments require a much tougher price. Poolbeg should be treated as additional upside on a good purchase, not as an excuse to overpay for a mediocre one.

Fact-checked and reviewed by our local expert

✓✓✓

Anthony McCann 🇮🇪

Co-Founder, FindQo.ie

Anthony McCann co-founded FindQo.ie to make property searching easier and smarter in Dublin. He recognised the growing demand for a modern solution in the city’s busy housing market. FindQo.ie helps Dubliners find places to buy, rent, or share—whether it’s a home or commercial space. The platform offers a smooth and helpful experience for anyone looking to move in Dublin.

Who is the author of this content?

INVESTROPA

A team researching how property purchases actually go wrong across Europe

We are a team of real estate researchers and local specialists focused on helping people avoid expensive mistakes when buying property abroad, particularly in Dublin. If you’d like to learn more about us, you can check our presentation page.