Buying apartment in Smithfield Square Dublin 7

mfrutos

Hello,

I am considering buying an apartment in Smithfield Square. My budget is 375000 and it seems there are 2-bed apartments within that price and close to the centre. I have been in the area only two or three times and the first impressions are good. I will try to go the following weeks at different times of the days.

What do you think about this area? Is a safe and comfortable area for a family with two young children? I see many apartments being sold at the same time and I wonder what the reason might be.

mfrutos

mfrutos wrote: »

Hello,

I am considering buying an apartment in Smithfield Square. My budget is 375000 and it seems there are 2-bed apartments within that price and close to the centre. I have been in the area only two or three times and the first impressions are good. I will try to go the following weeks at different times of the days.

What do you think about this area? Is a safe and comfortable area for a family with two young children? I see many apartments being sold at the same time and I wonder what the reason might be.

check it out in the evenings.

i like it myself but its not what id call a very settled area just yet

catrionanic

Lived in the area for years and loved it. Great location for when you're young. With kids though, I'm not so sure. There are a lot of shady characters that hang around the square and surrounding streets in the evenings. Quite a few people drinking on the street. I was always wary walking around there on my own at night.

There is also not a lot of green space for kids. Yes, the Phoenix park is one of the best parks in Europe, but it's a 15 min walk away and probably a bit longer for small feet to walk.

For your budget, I would be looking at something a bit further away from town which is more settled. With a garden. Two kids in a two bed apartment can be very tight, and the Smithfield apartments are hardly palatial.

PSFarrell

Lived for 7 years in the area. Great if you’re single as there are a lot of nice restaurants and bars in the area but not sure it’s a spot for a young family. A lot of services for drug addicts in the area means many undesirable types hanging around the square.

Goose76

Absolutely love the area, the transformation in recent years has been remarkable. However definitely not a great place for kids. Not in the sense that it’s unsafe (I’ve never felt unsafe there) but there’s very few children in the area at all. I’ve recently moved away from the area to the ‘burbs and cannot get over the number of kids in cafes and restaurants here compared to Smithfield (where there were literally zero a lot of the time).

As well as that, the square is overrun with stag and hen parties a lot of weekends, and the Generator hostel is always full of drunken tourists who rarely cause any trouble but it’s probably not the vibe you want with kids. The Jameson distillery is the main tourist attraction in the area which again just brings more of a party / drink atmosphere to the area.

The square is also very noisy during weekend days (not so much at night, ironically).

As others have said, with your budget you could get something better a bit further away. A 3 or maybe even 4 bed semi detached with a garden in some suburbs may be possible with your budget.

the_syco

mfrutos wrote: »

I am considering buying an apartment in Smithfield Square. My budget is 375000 and it seems there are 2-bed apartments within that price and close to the centre. I have been in the area only two or three times and the first impressions are good. I will try to go the following weeks at different times of the days.

What do you think about this area? Is a safe and comfortable area for a family with two young children? I see many apartments being sold at the same time and I wonder what the reason might be.

I'll use this as an example. It's above your budget, but it's a two bed apartment in your target area. It doesn't seem to have any other storage areas, though. Although the kids may fit, they'll be on top of each other when they hit 13, or even before then. As others have said; look further out for a 3 or 4 bed house.

ShaneC93

I worked near there for a while and I thought it was a great area with plenty of life, unlike some areas with high-rise apartments e.g much of the docklands which are practically dead of life outside of commuting hours. Especially in the last couple of years with much of the (previously vacant) retail & cafe units opening up (Chopped, Boojum, Token etc.)

Couple of things though;

Firstly I wouldn't say there's too many kids around, much of the population seems to be young adults who work in the city, save for a group of what must be nearly 100 young teens that come down nearly daily from the James St. area, the boys all on bikes and the girls blaring loud music from suitcase style speakers but they mostly keep to themselves.

Secondly noise can be at times an issue. There is a number of events throughout the year held in the square which can be quite loud, the aforementioned portable speakers which can no-jobe be heard from like a mile away and I'd keep in mind that multiple very large office developments have just started contruction in the area (not unlike most areas of Dublin but I'd expect there will be considerable noise during the daylight hours for the next couple of years).

gali_ll

Another advantage of the area is that it is now just 5 minutes walk from the new Technological University (TU Dublin) campus at Grangegorman. This is only half built at the moment but by 2021 will cater for over 10k students (which I suppose will have advantages and disadvantages, but should be good for property prices).

The part of the campus already open includes large green areas with playing pitches, a playground and walking paths.

johnnyskeleton

mfrutos wrote: »

I see many apartments being sold at the same time and I wonder what the reason might be.

At a guess, bearing in mind its impossible to know what peoples individual reasons are, apartments in smithfield were mostly bought by landlord/investors, some of which had a s.23 tax incentive. Now that prices are up and letting is harder, landlords may be selling and the apartments are being bought by owner occupiers.

In terms of potential problems, its always a good idea to get a good surveyor to look at an apartment before you buy, making sure that they check out the building, roof, lifts, basement and fire safety etc. Also ask for a copy of the latest minutes of the management co agm etc in case there are significant problems.

Tar.Aldarion

Is letting harder?