Deciding on a location to buy to live

IamtheWalrus

I am flat hunting. I have seen about 15 places now, of varying sizes and locations. I usually know as soon as I walk into a place whether it's a contender or not.

Can any first time buyers advise me on what to consider when buying? Obviously, I have my ideals, but I don't think such a place exists. Therefore, I will have to compromise on some attributes. The issue I have is, I'm not sure yet which attributes to compromise on.

For example, I could get a bigger place, further out of the city centre, or stay central and compromise on space.

Has anyone compromised, chosen one ideal over another, and wish they had chosen the other? It's so hard to know unless you've lived in the place.

athtrasna

Check out the "are you happy with where you live " thread. Pretty much covered in that.

caviardreams

I think you need to separate your dealbreakers/must-haves from your nice to haves.

For me, the former were things like gas heating (would not even view somewhere with electric after so many bad experiences), location, safety and security.

After that there were nice to haves like separate kitchen and living room etc. but I was happy to compromise on these as you are rarely going to find somewhere that ticks all the boxes.

dori_dormer

With apartments there are some much more obvious necessities in my opinion. Gas heating, and active managment company, not in debt, landlords who pay their fees.

I'd want top floor, with a single lift from car park to my level. seperate smaller blocks preferable than one giant block. Security in car park. What's the bin situation look like. What's visitor parking like

What rooms back onto neighbours rooms is important , like if their sitting room or bathroom shared a wall with my bedroom.

I'd require a window in all bathrooms also due to mould and ventilation. Storage is also important.

After buying and living in an apartment for 10 yrs I wouldn't do it ever again but the above would have made things easier.

Location is easier as you can simply see if there's buses/ trains into town. Shops nearby etc.

SarahMollie

OP, why dent you give a list of what you're looking for, rough search area and budget? Then ppl can make more relevant suggestions


I bought about 3 months ago, 3bed duplex apartment, access to green luas line and nice local area. I bought my place because its in a prime location, and was a good size, but because its a duplex, I didnt find myself getting into bidding wars with families, as I had with houses of a similar or even smaller size.

Its true though, its hard to anticipate everything about a new place. I bought a place that had been rented previously and was about 15 years old, so I wanted to give it a facelift of sorts (new kitchen, painting and flooring throughout. this of course unearthed problems that I'd never noticed and cost a fortune but I'm happy now that its done.

It also has only electric heating which I'm still getting used to, and would prefer gas but I'd been house hunting for so long and had viewed so many unsuitable properties, that I felt this ticked enough boxes to proceed.

IamtheWalrus

athtrasna wrote: »

Check out the "are you happy with where you live " thread. Pretty much covered in that.

Can you link me this?

messy tessy

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057531369

Butters1979

Some good advice already. One thing we tried when deciding to bid on properties was after viewing to write down the worst things about the property. e.g. Too small, bad view, no shops, poor lighting, anything.
Just thinking of the best things can cloud your judgement. Once you decide on the worst couple of things you can see very quickly if you'd be happy there.


When we did that for the house we eventually bought, the worst thing was it needed insulation work and was 5 minutes further from the Luas. Honestly, that was it. After that we were sure we were happy with it as insulation we can fix easy do and a longer walk we can just live with it.