Tell me why I don’t buy

I think they are quite high priced my opinion. I think you can get a 2 bedroom apartment at a lower price than this in a good area.

Would you like your teenagers going around that area at night when they reach that age?

Would a female be happy walking home at night?

Dont go living in a place where you will be worried about the safety of yourself or your loved ones. Thats not living.

That aside. Ive seen council flats from the 70s that look better than those.

Wouldnt be for me tbh.

It is near Botanic Gardens, hardly a bad area.

375k and 2.4k in monthly management fees for 74sqm, there is far better value out there even in dublin.

At 380K you'd find bigger houses down the road. Good parts of Finglas, Santry, Whitehall are not bad areas.

Also consider that you might not necessarily be best served by a location mid-way between city center and the airport. If you drive, what about just sticking around the M50. Keying in that apartment to Dublin airport right now it's a 21 minute drive, through m50. To the airport - from Blanch it's 16 minutes. Castleknock 22 minutes, Lucan 22 minutes, Palmerstown 17 minutes, Clondalkin 23 minutes.

Expands your search quite a lot huh? If by car anyway, either way you're hitting the m50. You can find houses, bigger , cheaper, in good areas and your husband might get an easier commute too because that whole area up to Glasnevin the traffic in the morning is awful. I wouldn't plan on taking the car up to the city anyhow.

I wont quote your questions but i'll answer the question you asked me. There are definitely worse areas. About 2 km up the road is Finglas which is a total dump. But where these apartments are is fine. I would have no problems walking there at night. But I think you could get nicer.

Well yes you see this a good bit. The listing is gone sale agreed and may come back in 2 months.

I presumed it was sale agreed but you say listing is gone. So it was withdrawn then

People need to understand management fees and there has to be an easier way to get the money from those who delay paying.

They are not a "joke". If you had a house you'd be paying similar type of money.

Bin Charges, (av €300 a year) Insurance premium (excluding contents) (av €450/year), maintenance of common areas including decoration of hallways, garden maintenance etc, and then a "sinking fund" for larger expenditure from time to time. EG road/pavement repairs.

A well run apartment scheme with a professional management set-up can be very attractive. Hence the absolute importance of seeing the management accounts and the level of non payment and the amount in the sinking fund

well its good to know who build the apartments in case you are going second hand purchase and there are some issues which builder has promised to fix ! Also gives a sense of quality(not a main parameter).

That you don't have a proper understanding of managing an apartment block, is your own issue.

There are certainly improvements that can be made especially on errant payers which are very costly to chase, but well run management company is beneficial to all owners.

You may have been involved with a poorly run one (and there are many), but don't tar them all with your singular experience.

I've 2 pension properties in two different schemes. Both have very strong management (I checked before i bought), both have sinking funds well in excess of 100k and annual fees are €1650 & €1850 respectively. The huge advantage is the OMC directors are professional in their approach whereas in some schemes you get petty people who see it as their fiefdom and that causes major problems.

I wouldn’t rule out the entire township or whatever it’s called, of Finglas.

Yes I’m aware of past history of the place but a few things to consider:

1. population of Dublin is going to continue to rise - location location location
2. 2nd and 3rd generations of Finglas people are now firmly there- so it’s a world away from what it was albeit it will never be Foxrock obviously
3. Many of the houses (council) built were built to last - they would also have some gardens and outside parking

If purchased at the right price, even a doer upper would likely save you money compared to this apartment along with - no yearly fees or concerns for demands for payment for big repairs etc

The OP currently has no kids- even if a couple came along a house is usually much better for parents than an apartment - unless there’s a total property crash like we saw in 2008 I don’t see prices of houses in Finglas going down - it’s too close to the city so it will always be in demand.

Given the current housing market, it’s only a matter of time before Finglas becomes a desirable location - any community who’s population is slowly gentrifying will only see houses prices in that area going one way- and that’s up.

If I were limited by the income threashold the OP has and was looking around the north side I’d pick Finglas any day over this place

You can very much assume the house you are buying has no management fees as it will be stated in the property listing, any searching you do about the development and the contracts you sign when you buy the property.

Literally every step of the way.

I have a friend who was in a 2 bed own door apartment in a development of about 150 mixed (Block apartments, 3 beds, 1 beds, some with own doors, some in block with hallways).

He was paying €2500 as was every other apartment. He didnt get the use of the fire alarms, corridor cleaning, lifts, corridor heating, lighting etc etc so he felt his portion of the fees was far too high for the services he was getting compared to other types of apartments.

He got himself voted on to the MC and discovered that the others on MC were paying the same fee for much more use of the services. He raised this and looked into a fair way to delegate fees based on the use a property was getting from them. After a bit of pushback he eventually pushed through an amendment that everyone was happy with. His fees dropped to €1500. The 1 bed own door apartments dropped to €800. The ones that required the lifts and corridor maintenance inside the blocks were weighted according to size for those services they used too.

It was a much fairer way to operate the charging structure. So get yourself onto the committee and look out for yourself.