Advice - Buy Now or Wait another 2 years

Honestly, I would go ahead and buy now. The market is all over the place, impossible to predict, but even now, when by rights prices should be falling due to inflation and high interest rates, every viewing I go to has gotten busy again. If you buy somewhere, you can give yourself a couple of years off from stressing over the property market, you have your own place (don't underestimate how much that counts for in terms of mental well-being), and you have a degree of certainty. And it's a couple of years of paying down the mortgage. It used to be the most normal thing in the world to buy somewhere small, then work your way up the ladder as your finances improved.

But that's just one opinion. If there's one thing I know, is that no-one knows anything for sure :(

Hold on for a house, management fees are in the 2000 euro plus range per annum.

I have a 2 bed apt in Dublin and my managment fees are 2600 per year. Maybe a lot less in the rest of the country but in Dublin managment fees of 2k+ are really quite common.

If you can, buy. That would be my advice, you're not in a relationship, you have no children (from what you submitted), your mental health, peace of mind and general well-being is what is at stake and I say this because you refer to your current situation. You are in your late 30's and you can afford a place, in that case, pull the trigger, what happens in the future is going to happen, deal with it then.

go for it, there is no ideal time to buy.people say they wish they were in a position to buy a few years ago but reality prices were low because so few people could actually get a mortgage .

in two years you will have two years shorter of any mortgage term, you will have higher life assurance.

you might he able to get a better home in a couple of years but do you want a larger home and garden enough to sacrifice your life for two more years ?

I have a theory that when you buy a house it should be somewhere you could end up stuck for the next 10 years and still be happy enough

That kind of rules out most apartments, if you end up with kids in the apartment then it might feel a bit cramped.

Tbh I really like the idea of family apartments, there's plenty of good examples of them in Europe. We just don't seem to be able to build them in Ireland

So if you are looking for a place where you could potentially raise a family, here's my few tips:

You'll obviously want to make sure there's a school in the area. But you'll also want to make sure there's stuff like a crèche, GP, shops, pharmacy and soft play centre nearby as well

You'll also want to make sure there's some playgrounds and open areas nearby where kids can be taken for a walk

And one extra, take a look at the pavements around the area and seem if they're narrow or all broken up. Not much more annoying than trying to navigate a buggy along a crappy footpath

In terms of the housing market, you might as well take answers from a horoscope as anything else.

My personal feeling is that the market can't sustain its current price growth and will begin to cool off a bit

Having said that, developers have become experts at slowing the supply of housing to keep prices high, and I don't see anyone stepping in to force house completions

So I don't think a price crash is around the corner, which kinda sucks for buyers

The other side of the suck coin is that if you buy now you're probably not going to get great value for money in terms of appreciation

One other suggestion, is there another area you can move to which will allow you to buy the house you want now at a more affordable price?

I know that might mean looking in the dreaded suburbs, or even worse, a satellite town 😱

But, it might let you fulfill the other criteria, and some places outside the cities can actually be quite nice to live in. If you can make the commute work, or work remotely then it's something to consider

Why doesn't Ireland open up a Visa scheme like this one:

get people in for a short period of time from say non EU countries. Build 100K houses and they go back.

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€2k for the better areas in Dublin is normal enough.

I advised a lot of people not to buy in 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007.

Most of them loved me for it over the next decade or so and hate me for it now :)

My outlook on buying has changed over the years.

Now I would advise anyone to get out of the rent trap.

Buy even a shed if they live in it. Trade or improve up if you can after that. At least you are out of the rent trap.

Lots of people who waited for prices to come down on that 3 bed house cant even now buy a 1 bed apartment and their rents have skyrocketed.

You could do worse than be stuck in a 1 bed apartment that is yours, paying a fixed mortgage on it.

You could be stuck with nowhere to live after your landlord has been forced to sell. Or you could end up back in with your parents long term.

Nowadays my advise is to buy the best property you can afford right now.

I was in similar position to you 5 years ago renting (very small rent) a granny flat type place from a family member with my husband. We hated being there so bought a very small townhouse knowing it wasn't going to be a forever home. It was just somewhere for max 10yrs, it suited us for where we were then and more importantly got us away from the family. Fast forward 4years and we sold it for a healthy increase and bought our dream home.

So if you can afford to buy your "right now " home with the mindset of it being a short term solution

"You'll either pay management fees or spend an equivalent amount on gardens/maintenance/refuse collection in a house so not a deal breaker imo"

Really you pay over 2k in garden maintenance a year? Refuse collection amounts to 250 a year for a house ! Big gap to the 2k a year.

If the OP’s budget is about enough for a 1-2 bed apartment now, I don’t see how it’s helpful advice to just say “oh buy a 3-4 bedroom house”. Of course that’s what we all want. The fact is, if you’re a single buyer, you have to compromise in some area.

I was like you last year, OP, I looked at both houses and apartments. The management fees put me off, but in theory I didn’t really have an issue with an apartment. However, if you buy a fixer upper house, just be aware that that can be stressful and have lots of unforeseen costs too. I’ve had a plumber out this morning for yet another thing that’s gone wrong.

Overall though, yeah I’d aim for a house if you can, but there are pros and cons with everything, when you’re on a tight budget.

Management fees includes insurance and maintenance of the building exterior plus a % for a sinking fund for major costs. Individual house owners need to pay building insursnce and regular repairs & maintenance like painting, gutter/ window cleaning, boiler service etc. so it probably balances out over a few years.

Of course there are some lucky owners who can diy everything and never have to pay a tradesman 😉

There are reasons houses like that in those areas are so much cheaper though.

I suppose one point the OP hasn't really touched on, where are they looking to buy?

They said if they waited another couple of years they could do 380-400k. Where would they be in 1 year I wonder?

If it were me I'd be hanging on to get a house if I was still living at home with the folks.

I always found apartments to feel like stop gaps, bought and lived in one myself for about 6-7 years but always thought of it as a stepping stoned to get to my current house.

Depends really on location of “apartment now” and “house in future”.

Did OP say what part of the country they are looking to buy?

Is there any duplex you could afford? I started off with one of those and was a decent compromise with own small garden etc

People have been murdered in Foxrock. Different people have different experiences in different locations.

Yes, a lot of folks living in harder, working class areas like that will be fine. Others might not. Some people might not like having to walk past gangs of dodgy teenagers on the way home, some folks might be okay with it. Some folks might not like hearing joyriders flying passed their house, other folks might like to sleep to it.

You are right though re the OP, we really do have nothing to go on. Don't even know where they'd ideally like to buy.

Can't really form any kind of suggestions without that information.

You can get a 2 bedroom house in D7 for 350-400k. I'd put that down as a nice happy medium between your 300K 1 bed southside apartments and Love/Hate land 😁

Living remote in the countryside also brings up it's own problems too though.

No public transport, far away from medical facilities, far away from entertainment venues, far away from friends/family. Couldn't do it myself.

Ah right ok sure they’re all grand those areas, listen I’m from an area that would be looked on as a bit rough I suppose another city not Dublin, when I was growing up there I didn’t really know any different, I thought it was normal for gangs of lads to chase you and if they caught you beat the hell out of you, I literally thought this happened to everyone, well it happened to everyone I knew.

It was only when I went to college (and getting there was a struggle) and got a different perspective from people from different parts of the country that I realised how truly bad it was, and believe me where I was from would have nothing on Coolock I’m very familiar with it.

I won’t defend these areas and say they’re fine I never saw any trouble, they’re not fine and would be the last places in Ireland I’d bring up kids, sure you may not see any trouble, but if you have kids they’re they’re the ones who’ll see it, they’re the ones who’ll be targeted by gangs of little scumbags. And not even that if they’re surrounded by people with no ambition it rubs off.

having lived in really nice areas I can safely say I’d rather commute than live in an area like that or take the chance on bringing up kids there, having grown up in it myself no way.

theres a reason most people want to live in citys, living in rural area,s usually means long commutes to work, i live in dublin ,i use the bus or i cycle .keeping a car on the road is not cheap, insurance ,cost of petrol maintenance. i don,t understand the logic of saying ,ill wait for 2 years and then ,ill buy a house unless he can maybe save 70k in 2 years . its a lot more complex than working class area, = love hate , crime,chaos versus middle class area equals heaven peace and tranqullity. my friend lives in a house in finglas, 99 per cent of houses on the estate are owned by the tenants bought from the council.i,d be happy to buy a 3 bed house there even if it was the same price as a 1 bed apartment in the city centre , eg its a council estate

she,s lived there for 20 years and never had any hassle or anti social behavior.

i think you should buy in a place no more than 35 minutes commute from your job