24 with good salary and deposit, should I buy an apartment or house?

Paddyg96 wrote: »

Revealing would probably identify me, so DM if you'd like to chat. Thanks for the advice, I'm living in the country now. Where do you think is nice? I'm just a little worried it would be quite isolating.

riffmongous wrote: »

I remember that IRM TV thread from a few years, happy to hear everything worked out for you.

Right now apartments offer better vfm than most houses tbh.

loads of grand canal places are at same prices they were in 2017, talking about the high quality ones (hanover, forbes quay, gasworks). Make sure you buy a B rated apartment, where the whole block more or less has B/c1 ratings at least. Individually refurbished B rated apartments where most of the block has no insulation (C3-E rates) can still be very cold (get proof of works done, windows and wall insulation if you still want it). Imo most mid level apartments habe too good ratings. Speaking out of experience.

houses only buy newbuilds (A rated) or total ruins that need a retrofit anyway. Ireland in the past was mostly either a very poor country or full of cowboy builders (till 2010), and build quality is accordingly. So many horror stories of C rated houses that hardly get above 19 degrees in winter and mould behind wardrobes etc. This wouldn’t be an issue (ie easy to fix) if prices weren’t that bid up.

Property in Ireland is not expensive vs comparable countries (Germany, netherlands, denmark, UK).

irish people are just moaners who behave like spoilt children and want everything for free :)

Poland and Hungary have much lower salaries than Ireland. Greece too.

spain has abysmal building standards and homes don't need/ have any insulation. Plus it’s very dry so it doesn’t really matter. Median income in Spain is almost half of Ireland’s.

none of these are remotely comparable.

why not compare Irish house prices to Albania and Moldova while we’re at it.

the so called “housing crisis” is largely an entitlement crisis…

Ah no. Don't doxx yourself. Value your anonymity. Don't make the same mistake I did and sign up to online accounts using your actual name. It can cause hassle later on when you get elected.

Fair play on the business though

I dont understand this advice.

Unless you think prices are going to drop over the next 5 years buy now and have a 5 year mortgage rather than wait 5 years and then buy for cash!

The interest over 5 years will be less than the house increase and/or rent and you are making sod all on that money in the bank anyway.

I dont agree with this at all, I was in a similar situation to the OP back in 2006, bought an apartment at near peak costs, 5 Years later in 2010 it was worth nearly 40% less than what i paid. During this timeframe my requirements changed (baby) and i needed to move out of an apartment that was in negative equity and purchase a larger home. I eventually accomplished this,but it caused a lot of unwanted headaches, and like a lot of people i became an accidental landlord for a long period of time before ultimately selling it 4 years ago at less than what i paid for it. I lost roughly 40k on the sale, after paying the mortgage on it for over 10 years. My story is not unique either. The last few years have seen a huge increase in rent, but who's to say that will continue and we are not in a housing bubble.

As others have also said OP, if you are a single lad in his 20's who has never lived on his own, you are probably going to want to have friends over and throw the odd party or two, I presume most of your mates are still living at home, so they will probably be spending a lot of time at yours or trying to have afters back in yours, that happened to me, and you will need to be very lucky with your neighbours that they wont kick up a fuss anytime you have anyone over... I wasnt so lucky.

Would you not try renting an apartment for even 6 months, you could easily afford the rent, this will give you time to adjust to living away from the folks and also gives you a chance to decide if apartment living is for you.