Buying a house in Dublin

egreta

Hello, we live in Holland but will be moving to Dublin soon. We are looking for a family house (to buy), not very expensive, in a child friendly street, middle class neighboroughood, close to a shopping centre or a proper size supermarket. Can anybody tell me which are the nice areas in Dublin? Also has to be close to main roads as we dont know yet where we are going to work. I am checking daft.ie for houses but I'm not sure which parts of Dublin to look at. Lucan? Blanchardstown?...

Flinty

Commute time is something I would definitely take into account. Also, unless your company are giving you some sort of allowance to buy a house, I would consider renting for a year first.

Edit...sorry, missded the bit about not sure where u are working yet.

egreta

We can get a mortgage from Holland to buy a house in Dublin, we own our house here in Holland and dont want to rent again. It's just not nice when you have a child. That's why it's important for us to end up in a right place. :-)

Yakuza

Hello there, welcome to Boards.ie!

Some areas to consider would be Sutton, Raheny, Clontarf, Sandymount, Blackrock, Mount Merrion, Rathfarnham, Terenure, Templelogue and Castleknock. That's not an exhaustive list, however, and I'm not going to list out any particular areas to avoid, as this thread will just degenerate into a series of "I'm from XYZ and it's lovely there" posts.

Most of the middle-class neighbourhoods tend to be on or near the coast (the first 6 in the above list), but, as with all things in life, there are exceptions everywhere (some not-so nice areas among middle-classs neighbourhoods, and vice versa).

Once you're within the M50 (a c-shaped motorway (well, dual carriageway after it gets upgraded ) that encircles Dublin, your commute time shouldn't be too long (<1 hour), depending on whether you have to cross the Liffey or not to get to work

As you're probably aware, property prices have fallen a lot in the last year or two, but that's not to say they're not going to fall further, but you should have a decent amount of houses to choose from, for a lot less than you would have paid for them a year ago.

There's another website, www.askaboutmoney.com that has a sub-forum dedicated to asking about areas / suburbs, so you might get some help there too.

Best of luck with the move!

Graham_B18C

Lucan and Blanchardstown are nice enough, but they both have bad area's in them, it all depends on how much a reasonable priced house is to you? Alot of the areas Yakuza mentioned are lovely but very expensive, like Blackrock is very expensive and Castleknock has some of the most expensive houses on the northside, I live near it and cant think of a reasonably nice and well priced area there. There's loads of places but until you find out where you'll be working, it'll be difficult to choose.

egreta

Thanks.
I've checked those areas, too expensive though.
How about Firhouse, Clonsilla, Clonee, Tyrellstown? Houses there look nice, also affordable. Are those neighboroughoods ok?

We lived in Dublin for 2 years (in Inchicore) a while ago, but dont know much about other parts. I wouldnt want to raise my children anywhere around there. No offence to people from Inchicore, just not really child friendly part of Dublin.

Graham_B18C

egreta wrote: »

Thanks.
I've checked those areas, too expensive though.
How about Firhouse, Clonsilla, Clonee, Tyrellstown? Houses there look nice, also affordable. Are those neighboroughoods ok?

We lived in Dublin for 2 years (in Inchicore) a while ago, but dont know much about other parts. I wouldnt want to raise my children anywhere around there. No offence to people from Inchicore, just not really child friendly part of Dublin.

They're not bad areas, Might be a good idea to give a ballpark amount you'd be looking to spend and people can be more helpful, because its very hard to pick a good area without knowing the budget

egreta

Around 350,000/

Jay D

If you were deciding out of the list you just gave I would choose either Clonee or Tyrellstown as they are very young areas and believe they would be ideal for children currently growing up. I have lived in Tyrellstown and it's a very peaceful area with local supermarkets, bank, pub, etc...

Clonee is relatively new but not as new as Tyrellstown. Friends of mine have families there and love it. Blanchardstown Shopping Centre is pretty much central to both Clonee and Tyrellstown and is the largest in Ireland. Seems like would suit your price range as well, good luck with it man!

Graham_B18C

They're both alright areas but very over developed, you could get a very nice house for that money, Navan road is a very nice area and there's loads of estates off it with houses very close to budget, Ashington, Villa Park, Kinvara, all really nice estates and you'll have a front and back garden for the kids, not a tiny back and car ports like in the newer places

donaghs

There's a lot of problem estates in and aorund the greater Blanchardstown area. Before you buy anywhere definitely spend some time there. Especially have a walk around a night. See what the local kids are like, how they behave towards people they don't recognise, etc.

silverside

Have you thought about renting for a while to see if you like an area? Many people believe prices have a lot further to fall.

You say you are looking for a "middle-class" neighbourhood and I presume you would like to be near facilities like public transport, supermarket, etc - without causing offence, the areas mentioned like Clonee, Tyrellstown etc are not settled middle-class areas (except possibly Firhouse), they are suburbia without many facilities - as are most places where you can currently buy for under 350k.

Degsy

Avoid clonee and tyressltwon,they're in the back of beyond and people payed so much for thier houses you're unlikely to find good value for money.
For 350k you should be able to get a 3 bed a LOT nearer to town than those places.
Try www.myhome.ie and look for areas like drumcondra,glasnevin,whitehall,raheny etc.
These are all decent areas with existing infastructure and good bus services,shops and schools.
IMO avoid tyrreslstown like the plague.

lightening

As Yakuza says, stick to the coast...

faceman

Id avoid the whole Blanch/Clonee area as its a traffic nightmare. Try find somewhere that is close to a train or Luas (tram) line. As you will find out, Dublin is very badly services by trains unless you live in the lucky areas. Also our 2 tram lines are connected and either are the 2 main train stations.

You will also find that Dublin offers very few amenities for children in suburban areas.

Best of luck with your search and move!

egreta

We can't rent before we buy, because we can only get a mortgage if we still work in Holland.
How about Firhouse then? Or Swords?
I also saw a lot of houses in Castleknock for around 350K. Or is it a bad part of Castleknock where you can buy for 350K?

And Donaghs, do you mean some areas in Blanchardstown are like in Finglas?

We also want to buy a relatevely newly built house, I dont think there are any in Raheny or Whitehall. It also has to be close to M50 in case. We dont know about the work yet, where it will be.

Degsy

egreta wrote: »

And Donaghs, do you mean some areas in Blanchardstown are like in Finglas?

What do you mean "like finglas"?

donaghs

Here we go! Another what's the best/worst part of Dublin thread.

To be as helpful as possible, one of the worst estates I had to enter briefly (as a part of a job) was Corduff in Blanchardstown. This was back in the late 90s but it is seared into my memory. As bad as Darndale.

I understand that you basically want a quiet middle-class non-violent part of Dublin which is safe to bring up children. And there's nothing wrong with that. The best way advice I can give you then is the same as the others - stick to the coastal half of Dublin, but there are always exceptions. Googling an area or a street with a key word like "arrested" will give you a very rough idea about how frequent crime/criminals occur there.

faceman

Tip for the OP, as you get close to shortlisting areas, give a call to the local Garda Station (Police station), www.garda.ie, they will give you insight into what crime etc is like in the area.

Degsy

faceman wrote: »

Tip for the OP, as you get close to shortlisting areas, give a call to the local Garda Station (Police station), www.garda.ie, they will give you insight into what crime etc is like in the area.

Ring up the local police staion and ask what the crime is like?

I've heard everything now..

Graham_B18C

Degsy wrote: »

Ring up the local police staion and ask what the crime is like?

I've heard everything now..

Why's that? None of the Guards around my area is actually from around here, they'd have no problems telling you the truth about the area. When I was renting in Ashborne, a Guard called to the house looking for the Landlord for some reason or another, when I told him I was only rentin for a few weeks, he turned to me and said...Kip isn't it! I really liked living there but he had no problem telling someone what he thought of the area!