Irish Property Market chat II - *read mod note post #1 before posting*

Along with better pay the shift structure is way better there with less hours, better time off and less on-call

I'm not originally Irish and I am no longer young 😢 but FWIW I think a major factor is how the Irish A&P market operates. It dicks people about in ways I have not seen in other countries.

And better weather.....

I'll take that reply not citing any source as an admittance of "I have no sources, I was stating my own unqualified opinion as fact" so. Extraordinary claims, like that of not a single Irish doctor emmigrating to any country anywhere in the entire world but Australia, do require proof to be believable.

I know multiple newly qualified Irish doctors who moved to Canada, NZ, the UK & US personally, so the figure is most definitely not zero. If you can't be bothered to look up the statistics then at least go talk to a recently qualified doctor and ask them about people from their year emigrating - its not just to Australia, unfortunately for Ireland.

I have spoken to doctors, who have all since moved to Australia, which you have shown the stats of. I've no interest in finding stats for the USA where its virtually impossible to get a Visa these days. We can bang on about housing all we like but they're moving because its double the pay and fewer hours, not rocket science. Nothing extraordinary about these claims. Conflating the doctor exodus with housing is actually more dangerous because if we fixed housing tomorrow we'd still be losing them, it needs its own solution.

I quoted and linked the statistic showing 62% of newly qualified doctors left the country moving to just one destination, and suggested that given that and the fact every year lots of newly qualified doctors move elsewhere in the Anglosphere in particular (anyone whos done medicine or known anyone who has will tell you this) the total number is likely going to be anything up to 70-80% I didn't say it was a mass exodus to elsewhere, my if anything low ball assessment was based on a fairly basic level of common sense / experience in the medical industry and didn't given a specific figure or claim to know one.

The poster replied saying "no doctors moved to any other country in the world except Australia". Which is just a bizarrely unlikely statement to make as a fact, and again anyone with any first hand medical industry experience would tell you otherwise. And when queried he had absolutely no proof to back-up his statement, because its obviously completely untrue.

So again - you actually have no idea what you're talking about, no statistics whatsoever. Got it.

The number one reason young Irish people are moving is housing, as I posted statistics to show. And that includes young Irish doctors and nurses, as their own organisations are literally saying, that I also posted. If they had cheap housing here the comparatively lower wages wouldn't be half as much of a push factor, because housing is the most important financial consideration in most young people's lives currently.

If you apparently think you know better than the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation and their like though you should probably get onto to them to let them know that housing actually isn't an issue for their members.

Now you are going to have to provide some sources yourself. For decades, health care professionals, including Doctors have moved abroad for a verity of reasons, the same reasons apply today. Some go for better wages, some go for better working conditions, some because there are better opportunities for specialist training positions, some just go because they feel it is an opportunity to travel and experience another country before returning home to settle down. When I qualified, buying a house was not even close to the top of my priorities, two of my children are relatively recent medical graduates who both work in the UK, they went there to take up posts in specialist training. I know it suits your narrative to say it is all about housing, but it isn’t, there are many reasons why Doctors are emigrating, but primarily it is to do with working conditions and opportunities for career development.

My complaint is the process rather than the prices. Main thing about buying in London was not wasting another 6-12 months of my life farting around with opaque bidding rounds.

Hi! Newcomer to boards.ie, and to the property market, here.

I live in a rental, currently paying very good price given the property (2200€ for a decent 3bdr in D14). The owner wants to sell next year, with a contract lasting until September 2024.

I have enough savings and AIP to aim for a ~500k€ property (similar to the house I am renting).

Given that we have over a year to look for a property, and that we are not too picky (we see a lot of houses that have been sold for 450-480k€ that we would have been happy to purchase), which is the best strategy to maximize the property we get for the price? At this point I wouldn't mind waiting for someone selling in a chain, for example. Is there a way to find people that sell at a discount because they're in a chain and it could take long to commit all the sales?

And a separate question: Is there a way to find people selling by themselves? (without Estate Agent). I would happily pay 5k€ extra just to avoid scamy EAs doing sale pressure tactics on us, specially since they might be able to trick my wife, and then I will have to be the level-headed "no, they are trying to scam us out of additional 20k€ with a non-existing offer". Which will no doubt cause me headaches. That's 5k€ + 3% that the seller would pocket (as long as they have priced the house right), I assume there has to be some market for people that sells like that.

Few tips I can give you having gone through a torturous purchasing process over multiple years.

• Try get to know some estate agents as quickly as possible. ‘Off market’ sales were almost always the best value we saw. It’s hard to get on their ‘list’ of off market buyers without showing you’re serious on a few houses initially. Once you’re on, you’ll start seeing some great houses with much less competition.

• Houses sold without estate agents must be less than 1% of the market. You’re looking at far too small a pool of houses. I’d forget this completely.

• Don’t be afraid to be the second highest bidder on a house, especially if you’re not 100% convinced on it. A significant percentage (20%+ id estimate) will fall through. If it does fall through and comes back to you at a price you were willing to pay. Don’t get too smart about it. We lost a house over this saying we’d drop our offer to asking price as the other bidder wasn’t legit. Seller put it back on market again. We bid asking but after a few weeks we ended up bidding about €100k over what we were offered the house for and still didn’t get it. Still kick myself to this day over being a smart arse.

• Estate agents are sneaky, don’t trust a word they say about ‘sellers want a quick sale’ etc. all that is just salesspeak. But they’re overwhelmingly not crooks and if you get too transfixed on that every one trying to rob you, you’ll be miserable. Sales tactics to draw higher offers from you are real. ‘Fake bids’ are a figment of the imagination of disgruntled outbid buyers. I was one of them. But take 5 mins to think it through and you’ll realise they make no sense. Be courteous throughout, but give away as little info as possible.

• Biggest one. Get it over with as quick as you can. Life’s too short to waste years trying to buy a house. It’s fun at first, but gets miserable over time. If I could go back in time, I’d happily have paid an extra €50k or more earlier in the process while we were still excited about the whole thing. The mental torment we went through for two years bidding was more painful than the money. In the end, it was relief and not the joy it should have been.

• Especially for you. The interest on your mortgage will be roughly half your rent. So you’ll save nearly €15k a year by buying. This time next year the 5 year fixed will probably be at least 1% higher. So your interest repayments will be c.25k more in the first 5 years. So you’d need a €500k house today to sell for €460k this time next year to be exactly the same financially. The maths is against you there.

Best of luck.

I was also considering buying. I decided to hold for a bit, there are more and more signs to stress in the housing market and recession.

Your question on avoiding EAs is odd as your reasoning is you want to get house cheaper....remember seller wants to get max price...

Anyway, my situation may be different to you since Ill likely just buy with cash, mortgage rates getting too high. But Id still consider holding.

Thanks a lot DataDude. I feel much less lost after reading your post, and will most likely refer back to it until I understand the tips by heart.

We will make sure we won't stay that long (+2 years) in the market, we need to provide stability to our kids, if needed we will indeed go with slightly more expensive/less value than our favorite sales from the price register.

No problem, you’ll be fine. You know what you want to buy, you know what that costs and you are able to afford it. You’re in a far better situation than most

I think its a bit of both. Private people who don’t want 30+ strangers stampeding through the house including nosey neighbours, all with the risk that the winning bidder is a spoofer.

Happy to risk getting a slightly lower price but doing it quickly and discreetly with 3 or 4 buyers who are known to be serious and ready to close quickly.

Will be intresting if this sparks some action on short term lets