It would barely pay for a family holiday today – but in 1972 – it would buy you a brand new gaff

11:17, 01 Dec 2025Updated 11:20, 01 Dec 2025

Ad from 1972 – read it and weep!(Image: SM)

If you are one of the many trying to navigate the housing crisis in Cork – where the median price of a new property has now hit €380,000 – you might want to avoid an old ad that’s being shared on social media across Munster. For the sake of your blood pressure.

The old ad is from local Cork newspapers, printed in 1972. And it promises house hunters a new-build, modern three-bedroom bungalow. All buyers had to do was supply the site and the company involved would do everything from applying for planning permission to landscaping the garden.

Not only that, using a pre-fabricated, modular system, with concrete panels put together at a facility in Midleton, the Roh Fab company promised to deliver your new home in just 8 weeks from foundations to final fix. Try doing that in 2025.

And the total cost of your new build three-bed anywhere you could find a site in Cork? Just £3,990 in old Irish pounds. Even adjusted for over 5 decades, with an average inflation rate of around 4.7%, that would still be in the region of €70,000 in today’s Euros. Of course, a lot has changed since 1972, but experts point to the dire shortage of housing stock as the key factor in the housing crisis that has now lasted for oner a decade, with no signs of easing.

Ad from 1972 – read it and weep! (Image: SM)

RTE archive footage from the early 1970s shows the Midleton operation involved in the production of these modular homes that offered a real alternative to young couples looking for a family home in Ireland at the time.

The Roh-Fab company was set up by Cork businessman Ken Rohan, along with his brother John, and they introduced the concept of mostly one-off, rural, modular-built homes in the early 1970s to great success. The Rohan Group remains in family hands and is today one of the biggest property development groups in Ireland, with huge projects in Dublin and elsewhere around the country.

The ad being shared on community Facebook pages in Cork has provoked some pretty shocked responses, with one comment saying: “Four grand for a new three-bed in Cork? Wouldn’t even buy you a decent ten-year-old family car today!”

Another said: “I know my parents struggled to get a mortgage, but once they did, they could look around for a place they wanted, close to home and afford it. Something’s gone seriously wrong in this country today, when people are working flat out, trying to save their money, and they’ve little hope of finding anything at all.”

One other commentator simply said: “4 grand for a new three-bed in Bandon? I’ll take three!”