If you think Sarah Beeny-type property transformations, where a quick renovation can add another digit to the purchase price, are confined to the years of the boom, you might want to think again. Picking the right property, in the right area, gutting it and bringing it back to the market as a gleaming ready-to-walk-into family home can still reap substantial dividends.

Take Kenbern, a three-bedroom bay-fronted 1920s semi-detached house on Newtownpark Avenue in Blackrock. Last year, the 96sq m (1,036sq ft) property was on the market with the daunting-to-some tagline: “in need of complete refurbishment”, and an asking price of “in the region of €300,000”. It eventually sold for just €170,250 in February 2013, according to the property price register, where the scale of the work needed obviously deterred potential buyers.

Now, a little over a year later, it’s back on the market asking €825,000, thanks to a head-to-toe makeover and an extension.

Completely renovated, the house now boasts an energy efficient B1 BER rating, as well as an all-important extra bedroom and a bespoke, light-filled kitchen. Not a bad turnaround for a year’s work.