Buying a house in Clongriffin

akesha

Hi all,

my partner and I are thinking in buying a house, and we see that houses in Clongriffin are cheaper than other zones like Artane, Raheny, etc.

Could you give us some advice? How is living there?
The zone that we liked is the neighbourhood of houses that is located at the left of Main St if you come from the station. Are they nice?

We went the other day for a walk, and we saw that there are very few stores opened. Any chance in the future in which stores are coming to Clongriffin? We are not sure of buying there if the zone is that "dead".

Thank you in advance!

The Hill Billy

Moved to Dublin City.

tHB

MarkAnthony

Dunno about Clongriffin but I'm loving living in Kilbarrack which is much cheaper than Artane/Raheny.

volono

hi o.p. difficult dilemma, the area in itself is nice imo but the estate was built during the boom, beside the dart station was suppose to be a Supervalu or Tesco's I think.
The building itself for that planned shopping centre is still there of course. At the moment your right, there's not a lot there shops wise, maybe an off licence, take away and a pharmacy. Will it improve in time re: shops and services, almost definitely imo.
It's very centrally located with train and bus services into the city centre and beyond, donaghmede /Clare hall / Baldoyle shops etc. are all very much on your doorstep basically, The Q. is can you wait and then put up with the extra development of the area that will almost certainly come ??, monetary wise can u afford to move into the other areas mentioned?? which imo are all settled and nice places to live, best of luck with your decision.

markpb

Depending on where you work, it may be worth checking the Dart timetable. Clongriffin is not as well served as the stations either side of it which was a dealbraker for us.

akesha

We think it is best to buy there now that they are cheap, as my partner thinks that in a few years the shops will come. But I read that the zone is dead since 2009/2010, and I am afraid that the stores won´t come. How many people bought/rented there for the last few years? Is the number increasing?

About our budget, actually it is not a problem. We both are IT engineers with a good salary (60K and 65K) and good savings (66K, and increasing around 4K per month). It is just that we don´t want to spend more than 300-350K, and obviously the less we spend, the better (we are seeing houses in Clongriffin that cost around 260K).

The other day we came back to the city center by taxi, and we saw a little bit of Raheny and Artane, and I think they are more settled, but buying there could cost around 100K more, so it is a difficult decision...

Edit:

I am working in Sandyford, but I have a free shuttle which I catch in D'olier St.
My partner is working next to Thomas St, so I suppose he will need to take the bus, or dart + bus.

evosteo

akesha wrote: »

We think it is best to buy there now that they are cheap, as my partner thinks that in a few years the shops will come. But I read that the zone is dead since 2009/2010, and I am afraid that the stores won´t come. How many people bought/rented there for the last few years? Is the number increasing?

About our budget, actually it is not a problem. We both are IT engineers with a good salary (60K and 65K) and good savings (66K, and increasing around 4K per month). It is just that we don´t want to spend more than 300-350K, and obviously the less we spend, the better (we are seeing houses in Clongriffin that cost around 260K).

The other day we came back to the city center by taxi, and we saw a little bit of Raheny and Artane, and I think they are more settled, but buying there could cost around 100K more, so it is a difficult decision...

Edit:

I am working in Sandyford, but I have a free shuttle which I catch in D'olier St.
My partner is working next to Thomas St, so I suppose he will need to take the bus, or dart + bus.

Have a look at some houses around grangemore in donaghmede, grattan lodge/hall and clare hall if you have a decent budget. You could easily get a house there in a settled area under your budget and maybe look at renovating or extending. Personal opinion but I feel anything thats been build in the last 10 years in ireland with some exceptions has been done to a poor building standard just so the builder can make a better profit. Expect more "priory hall" scenarios in the next few years.

akesha

evosteo wrote: »

Have a look at some houses around grangemore in donaghmede, grattan lodge/hall and clare hall if you have a decent budget. You could easily get a house there in a settled area under your budget and maybe look at renovating or extending. Personal opinion but I feel anything thats been build in the last 10 years in ireland with some exceptions has been done to a poor building standard just so the builder can make a better profit. Expect more "priory hall" scenarios in the next few years.

Those zones are far away from the dart, and I see through google maps that going to the city center in the morning by bus takes around an hour. This is too much, I would like to be max 30-35 min away from city center. For getting to my job, it would take an hour and a half, I don´t want to spend that much time commuting.

volono

with that budget you have lots of options have a look for a place in donaghmede, grangemore, grangeabbey etc, theres plenty of choice in the 280k price range, I know I'd rather a 3 bed house in those areas instead of clongriffin even though they're actually vey close by. You'd have donaghmede shopping centre, howth junction dart station on your doorstep best of luck

chillin117

akesha wrote: »

I am working in Sandyford, but I have a free shuttle which I catch in D'olier St.
My partner is working next to Thomas St, so I suppose he will need to take the bus, or dart + bus.

Or get down to Graingers Malahide Rd and get the 123 across the road to Thomas St

arybvtcw0eolkf

volono wrote: »

with that budget you have lots of options have a look for a place in donaghmede, grangemore, grangeabbey etc, theres plenty of choice in the 280k price range, I know I'd rather a 3 bed house in those areas instead of clongriffin even though they're actually vey close by. You'd have donaghmede shopping centre, howth junction dart station on your doorstep best of luck

^^ On the OP's budget I'd be in agreement here.

There are much nicer area's in Dublin 13 for the OP's budget than Clongriffin IMO.

akesha

As I said, not all zones in D13 suit us because of commuting. Having the dart line nearby is a plus. So Clongriffin and Baldoyle are the ones in which I am looking houses.
Also D5, because it is closer to the city center and you can have dart line depends on the zone.
We are open to look in another zones, like D7 (Navan Road, Cabra).
And we love the south part but it is quite more expensive (we lived in Dundrum for a while).

We are looking for a 3 bed house, and we would like to spend less than 300k actually. There are two detached houses in Clongriffin at the moment around 250K so we are quite excited about them. It is a taugh decision though, and we need to start viewing houses before making any decision. I am working in the paperwork for an approval in principle already, so hopefully we will have it in less than a month

MarkAnthony

Thought I made this comment but in regards to D5 I'm living in Kilbarrack, it's 15 mins into Tara street on a good run on the DART, houses are cheap, area is nice, DART is very handy.

akesha

MarkAnthony wrote: »

Thought I made this comment but in regards to D5 I'm living in Kilbarrack, it's 15 mins into Tara street on a good run on the DART, houses are cheap, area is nice, DART is very handy.

Oh yes, sorry, I didn´t mention your post. Kilbarrack is a nice area and we are interested in it, but at the moment there isn't much houses on sale there (in daft there are only 2, and I don´t like them). I'll take a look once in a while to check if more houses come into selling

MarkAnthony

akesha wrote: »

Oh yes, sorry, I didn´t mention your post. Kilbarrack is a nice area and we are interested in it, but at the moment there isn't much houses on sale there (in daft there are only 2, and I don´t like them). I'll take a look once in a while to check if more houses come into selling

There's a lot sold recently. DAFT isn't the best for house sales, it's worth checking but I found Myhome.ie better.

Did you start another thread or something? What I meant was I thought I'd already mentioned Kilbarrack. Dunno maybe it was deleted.

Gloomtastic!

You'll find 3 bed houses in Marino for about €350k......

akesha

MarkAnthony wrote: »

There's a lot sold recently. DAFT isn't the best for house sales, it's worth checking but I found Myhome.ie better.

Did you start another thread or something? What I meant was I thought I'd already mentioned Kilbarrack. Dunno maybe it was deleted.

I think you are the first reply to this thread talking about Kilbarrack :S
I am checking myhome as well, thanks for the advice, I didn´t know that myhome is best for buying

Gloomtastic, 350k is the top of my budget, but I rather buy a house further for 250K than in Marino for 350K. I think it is a huge different paying 100K + interests more... don´t you think?
If every house cost around 350K, my opinion would be different...

Gloomtastic!

akesha wrote: »

Gloomtastic, 350k is the top of my budget, but I rather buy a house further for 250K than in Marino for 350K. I think it is a huge different paying 100K + interests more... don´t you think?
If every house cost around 350K, my opinion would be different...

Fair enough, but quality of life is important too......

MarkAnthony

akesha wrote: »

I think you are the first reply to this thread talking about Kilbarrack :S
I am checking myhome as well, thanks for the advice, I didn´t know that myhome is best for buying

Gloomtastic, 350k is the top of my budget, but I rather buy a house further for 250K than in Marino for 350K. I think it is a huge different paying 100K + interests more... don´t you think?
If every house cost around 350K, my opinion would be different...

Sorry about the confusion, there is something funky with either my computer or boards, posted to Helpdesk. My posts seem to be going missing. Didnt mean to come across as I wasn't getting your attention

Best of luck with the house hunt!

tricky D

MarkAnthony wrote: »

Did you start another thread or something? What I meant was I thought I'd already mentioned Kilbarrack. Dunno maybe it was deleted.

Not deleted, just the system is having some trouble resulting in posts disappearing randomly.

akesha

Gloomtastic! wrote: »

Fair enough, but quality of life is important too......

Could you explain further? Do you think that living in Clongriffin would mean poor quality of life? Why?

We both are 31 years old, and we don´t go out much, maybe once or twice per month to have dinner and drink some beers/cocktails. Apart from this, I think that more or less I have everything nearby (dart/bus, schools, lidl at 15 min walking, cinema in coolock, city center in around 30 min of transport). We are thinking about buying a car as well, so getting to places won´t be a problem.

Opening this thread was meant to know the problems that I can´t see living in a place like Clongriffin, so I am really interested in your answer

markpb

Commuting. Getting from Clongriffin to Sandyford is going to take a long time every day. You'd want to budget an hour each way, probably more.

The frequency of the Dart from Clongriffin is nothing to write home about. Mornings are okay (10 minute wait) as long as you don't need to get in early (there's a 30 minute gap after 7am). The evenings are worse, there's only a train every 20 minutes.

If the shuttle bus from town gets stuck in traffic, you might want to look at walking from Pearse to SSG but that's a 15 minute walk plus 20 minutes on the train and 25 on the Luas plus waiting times.

I looked at doing that exact commute early this year and wrote it off as a bad idea.

neris

would you consider Baldoyle? Houses around grange road, meadow book and seagrange for sale. you have the option of the 2 dart stations then and numerous buses to town. also a more settled area and possibly a better built older house

bajer101

Some of the houses in Clongriffin suffered from the pyrite issue. I think they have all been fixed, but you might want to check it out.

There are a couple of new housing estates in nearby Balgriffin which are worth looking at Parkside and St. Doolaghs. It's a five minute walk to Clongriffin Dart station, but it's a five minute drive and there is free parking at the station. DART frequency is less than ideal (as Clongriffin is on the Malahide fork), but they are reliable. Check out the timetable and see if the DART times suit you. I get the 8:32 (which is very punctual), to get into town for 9. I get the 17:20 from Tara St. home (which is usually 3 or 4 minutes late).

akesha

markpb wrote: »

Commuting. Getting from Clongriffin to Sandyford is going to take a long time every day. You'd want to budget an hour each way, probably more.

The frequency of the Dart from Clongriffin is nothing to write home about. Mornings are okay (10 minute wait) as long as you don't need to get in early (there's a 30 minute gap after 7am). The evenings are worse, there's only a train every 20 minutes.

If the shuttle bus from town gets stuck in traffic, you might want to look at walking from Pearse to SSG but that's a 15 minute walk plus 20 minutes on the train and 25 on the Luas plus waiting times.

I looked at doing that exact commute early this year and wrote it off as a bad idea.

At the moment I am living in Thomas St, and it already takes me one hour to get to Central Park. I walk to D'Olier every morning to catch the shuttle, and in the evening it leaves me in Dawson St. There is usually no issues with traffic, but I have another choice as there is another shuttle from and to Blackrock.

One hour of commuting is not the best, but I assume it. More than that, it is too much.

Also, around frequency I don´t see the problem. We are from the northwest of Spain, and the train frequency was 30 min and sometimes 60 or even 90, so it is just a matter of getting the right one and waking up early enough xD I lived in Madrid as well and the frequency was 10-20 min, during the weekends more, and I think Madrid has one of the best commuting system in the world.

So, basically, I don´t think it is that bad.

neris, yes, I have Baldoyle in my list (which is basically, Clongriffin, Baldoyle, Kilbarrack, Raheny, Coolcock, Artane, and Cabra and Navan Road in D7).

bajer101, the houses I am looking are second hand, but I will take a look about the pyrite issue, thanks for the advice. We don´t have a car at the moment. It is in our plans to buy one, but after purchasing the house.

Do you think it is impossible for Clongriffin town center to open? Not now, but in several years? I read that people weren´t living in Clongriffin, and when we went for a walk there were a lot of people getting off the dart. Could be that the number of people is increasing? If the economy starts to recover, people start to work and buying houses, is a chimera to think that clongriffin could be what it is supposed to be in, I don´t know, 5 years?

Dublin13

I lived in clongriffin from 2006 to start of this year. We had been waiting for that shopping centre to open for a long time, superquinn pulled out. There is work going on in it but extremely unlikely anything will open any time soon.
There is a Chinese restaurant, a centra, an off licence, a chipper an Italian restaurant and A hub that does yoga etc etc. Location is close to a lot. Our reasons for leaving and selling were that the estate just was not settled enough. Plus the Management company. House wise the mgt fee is not too bad but the Mgt company are extremely different to get to do anything in the estate. The roads were also way too narrow for us with a young child. The parking in Clongriffin is a huge issue, in the apt's and on street, you can drive around walk around about 6-7pm every evening and you will see cars parked double and on paths etc. There is a huge amount of rented properties now, so it is more renter occupied than owner occupied. All I can say is, those questions you asked in your last post we asked about 7 years ago.... and none of it happened, in fact our pharmacy closed down and nothing replaced it.

There is a large Polish community in the estate so I did find I did not know as many neighbours as when I First moved in.
yes houses did have pyrite but all houses were complete and cleared of this, and all will have certs to prove it a number of years now. Plus
The new houses at the park look lovely and they seem to have been given more parking than the older parts of the estate. They seem to have bigger gardens also, and off street parking. The park beside main street is amazing and if you have kids a wonderful place to take them. The staff in all the shops and locations are amazing.

As said I've moved out since the start of the year, I don't miss the place really, as I love being in a more settled area, however everyone is different. Its a young vibrant community and busy and lots of kids playing and happy. If you want that and don't mind it isn't settled then I would say even with the negatives (which every place has), it is a very nice place to live.

akesha

Thank you very much for your post Dublin13. It helped a lot.

We don´t mind that isn´t settled right now, and in the case of changing our minds, we can do exactly what you did, move to somewhere else.
At the end, LIDL is located 15 min away by walking, and for shopping/going out we can go to clare hall or city center, so I don´t think it is that bad.

Thanks again!

Dublin13

that's no problem. It's not that it isn't settled. For a housing estate that is still so young, I do feel its settled, But I mean its not settled in relation to a 30/40 year old housing estate (what we wanted).

Lidl is very handy, also as you said Clarehall (mind not much in that shops really), but its very close to the local beaches, parks, all in quick driving distance. Creche if you have or want to have kids is right in the middle of the estate and amazing.

If your looking for a young vibrant estate, with a lot of activity (in a good way), then it is ideal. We moved in and loved it for those reason. Young people, young kids etc etc.. then we moved when it felt right. It will never be a place I look back and regret for one bit that we moved there. But for other reasons and for a more settled estate we moved out.

Best of luck if you do decide to put in an offer, I have seen some beautiful houses go up recently for sale, not the new ones now (they are nice mind) but slightly more settled houses in there that have been done up amazing.

akesha

Thanks a lot Dublin13. We found your posts very useful.

Indeed we are thinking in having kids in a few years, and are not looking for 30-40 year old housing estate yet, so we think it is the right place for us at the moment.

We finally got sale agreed in a house in BeauPark, so we are really excited planning all things we want to change/buy in order of feeling it our home. Luckily we will be living there in Christmas time or in January

WarZ

I'm pretty sure there was a shoot-out between some Eastern European gangs there the other week. I think the local Chinese take-away was shot up in the melee.

uli84

Wild West to the East indeed

http://www.irishmirror.ie/news/two-men-flee-lives-after-6634325