buying second property for investment purposes

No no no no no. Crazy idea in current rental legislative chaos. Don't do it.

So you want to buy a property for 350k and hand it to someone with a contract that is effectively worthless

Have a read of this

https://www.irishtimes.com/crime-law/courts/2022/12/20/tenants-who-owe-over-70000-in-rent-arrears-can-spend-christmas-in-house/

Doesn't it have to be their primary residence to avail of the rent a room scheme though?

exactly 🤣

You've a sizable deposit sitting there. One advantage of such a deposit might be you can buy without having to sell. That will make you an attractive proposition to anyone selling. It might actually save you money as some vendors may be willing to accept a lower bid to avoid the hassle of relying on bidders having to sell their house.

Now if you're really want a bigger house is is a good idea to tie some or all of that money up in an illiquid asset. A deposit on a BTL worth 350k would be €105k. That half of your current savings. Forgetting about the state of the Irish rental market the transactions costs alone will be a factor. Stamp duty, solicitor x2 (buying and selling investment property), estate agent fees etc. If you're primary aim is not too be a long term landlord these costs may make a short term rental loss making.

That's before you factor ongoing cost of maintenance. Will you manage the property yourself or will you pay someone else. So you want the hassle of a tenant phoning you about a burst pipe at 2am (.... Or worse the 4am call to ask you to change a lightbulb)

You also say you don't think there is no value in the segment of the market you're looking at. There is no guarantee that at the €350k mark it will be any better.

You want to upsize to larger house in near enough future? A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, so hang onto your cash..

Yikes, a lot of negative comment here!

But my experience on this:

Investment property is a very good idea, nearly guaranteed to be the best return for risk available to you over 10-20 years.

But some risks involved as well, especially in the short term, there is a strong risk that house prices will reduce next year, some projections of between 5 to 10%.

As regards mortgages, BTL is not easy to obtain at the moment, you will easily get a residential mortgage. Some mortgage lenders will not lend to you if you have a mortgage already (mainstream), so having a BTL mortgage could effect your ability to get a residential mortgage. In theory you could get the residential mortgage from a mainstream lender and then take a second mortgage if possible from other lenders. But the other lenders are not lending at present.

I think take your time, talk to an advisor and consider your options carefully. Using the 200k to finance your next PPR would save 3-4% mortgage interest, which is not a bad return either...

Can you afford to pay the mortgage if a tenant goes rogue? Are you strong enough to be a landlord?

It is not as easy as people think. The answer to the above questions are crucial for your decision.

I assume they are on remittance basis tax.

Or if not, don't know they need to pay tax in Ireland on Worldwide income.

You cannot qualify for rent a room relief if you're not living there.

You are also supposed to notify your bank (and insurance company) if you rent out your home.

I think you have that arseways. Domicile is relevant for tax purposes insofar that it allows the State to apply some tax to wealthy Irish people who deliberately move abroad to escape tax residency while really maintaining their long term base here.

If you are tax resident then you will be tax resident and have to pay tax on your income. Your domicile won't matter.

A person can, in theory, be ordinarily resident, stay here for more than 6 months in this year so that they are technically tax resident, but have split year treatment applied if they genuinely move abroad. If they were going permanently, they could change their domicile to the foreign country. But they'd still be subject to the split year treatment. So it would make no difference as regards tax. Unless they wanted to avoid the domicile levy after they went

You have that wrong. Persons who are resident here but who have an Irish domicile may benefit from the remittance basis whereby their non-Irish sourced income is subject to Irish income tax only to the extent that it was remitted to or enjoyed in Ireland.

The domicile levy was created as a result of an outcry that some very wealthy Irish domiciled but non-resident people paid little or no Irish tax despite having large amounts of income, significant Irish property etc. this was generally because they were non-resident while remaining Irish domiciled. Persons such as JP McManus, Dermot Desmond and Denis O’Brien were often cited although it was not expressly related to them.

As the publican/hotelier Louis Fitzgerald has recently found, the domicile levy can also be applied to Irish resident persons. In his case his substantial income was sheltered from Irish income tax by capital allowances/tax depreciation but he paid USC. He has been forced also to pay the domicile levy despite being resident.

Hardly that slim, anyone who is a citizen of another country but resident in Ireland could claim non-dom status, you would just need to claim that you plan to move back to your own domicile ultimately (your domicile is sometimes associated with where you 'intend to die'). Non-dom originated as a tax break to encourage people to go abroad to the colonies for extended periods, their income being tax-free while out of the UK. In the UK they have levels of non-dom, where after 7 years you start paying huge amounts in charges to claim non-dom. But the fact you can claim it at all after 7 years shows that it isn't temporary. The Irish non-dom status is inherited from the British system.