Boots-on-the-ground buying, how are you finding it?

Well is realistic 230k.. it's one bed. Needs a new kitchen and bathroom and general clean up. Tiny space what's the management fees etc..

The kitchen looks okay to me, but I've low standards. I'd say it will go for about 250k as there would be great potential to rent it out. Fill that with bunk-beds and it would make a fine addition to any slum king's portfolio. :(

some interesting stories here and sort of comforting to realise I'm not alone in the soul-destroying department. I have been viewing houses and apartments around Cork county (and some city) and what really annoys me is the terrible state of a lot of properties up for sale. They are all ex-rental and the owner clearly knows he/she doesn't need to lift a finger in order to sell it for above the asking. I have seen some kips and I'm sorry, I will not fort out what I consider to be a lot of money for a dive that needs a further 50k just to look clean and modern (and forget about trying to get a tiler, plumber, carpenter!).

And another thing that bugs me is the attitude from some (not all) estate agents. One place where I was bidding enforced a minimum bid increment of 5000. Maybe this is more common than I realise but jesus it's quite sickening. And this agent does all the bidding through Daft so it's not as if they are being annoyed with phone calls of small bids.

We got a place 5 years ago and had the exact same thing happen - we assumed we'd have to pay 5-10k over the asking price, most places went for 20%+ over. After months of disappointment we just accepted that we would need to factor that increases into our spend and lowered the budget accordingly. Originally planned to spend 410, instead started looking at places for 350 and ended up at 400 once the bidding stopped.

That said, our house was probably a little undervalued at the time, if it had been listed at 400 we would have happily paid that on the spot but the bidding would have driven it up. The EA was a sneaky so-and-so though, once we hit 400 and had chased off the other bidder she relisted it for viewings as the bidding had pushed it up into another bracket which might draw some new eyes to it (thankfully not).

I guess it depends on how picky you are, but I wouldn’t touch either of those houses unless you were happy to spend a minimum of 300k on top of the asking.

Even a low end retrofit quote will be bare minimum 2k per sqm and likely closer to 3k if you want the finish the typical buyer of those houses will want!

So at that stage I’d probably just look to house at the 1.3-1.5m range that are fixed up already.

The Avondale house wouldn’t need 300k. 2 bathrooms 30k, and a kitchen for another 30k. And it’s good to go, I’m. It not a huge fan of expensive energy retrofits. The payback period is really poor. People have been living the houses for years without issue. EWI would modernise the exterior and make it more comfortable

the monkstown house wouldn’t need 300k either. 100k would get you a kitchen , bathrooms, stove, paint and carpets.

I viewed it last week and it’s not in bad condition.

There’s a balance . It might costs a bomb to beat, but still less than doing an expensive retrofit, with a 20 year paybavk. There’s lots of low hanging fruit that can be down to reduce heating costs before going for an expensive retrofit

Thats not an apartment., Thats a room :)

A studio apartment

The BER system has big flaws.

what would you spend hundreds of thousands on?

You didn’t answer the question…

A good quality thermal imaging camera can be useful to 'see' what is and is not insulated...

However, I'm guessing you are really asking how best to assess the heat retention properties of a house when buying. You might think I being pedantic here but I often come across houses with very good insulation values but yet lose heat at a rate of knots, literally.

Any heat loss surveyor worth their salt should be able to give a decent assessment with a simple on site visit.

The kitchen is 5.13 m x 3.25m. I don’t believe an extension is a must.

quick question, people mentioning the 10-20% over asking but i assume this is for houses. What are apartments and duplex's doing in Dublin? I am really hoping it is is no more than 5% over the asking which is standard.

Asking is just a marketing tool which varies from property to property, agent to agent and owner to owner. You should never use it as an anchor. Look at similar properties which have sold and see what they sold for. work out the value from that. Bid what you think it is worth without regard to the asking price.

Yeah, we sold our house two years ago, two estate agents came to value it, both were within 10k of one another in their estimate.

First guy said he would list it at 10% below what he thought we would get, to hook people in and get them bidding. Second guy said he would list it higher than what he thought we would get, because then people could low-ball us and think they were driving a hard bargain.

So, the same house could have gone up on daft.ie with maybe a 60k difference in the asking price, but with the same actual valuation, depending on who we chose.

Lol, did you like the pause for dramatic effect?

Went with the first guy and we did indeed close at about 10% over the (deliberately low) asking price. We were sale agreed on our new house so a quick sale was more important than squeezing every euro out of it.

Just an example of how asking prices aren't a great indicator of much.

It just highlights how the whole process of buying a house in this country is based on smoke and mirrors.

Its basically a big game of poker to see how high you can get someone to go before agreeing to sell. Set the 'asking price' low to reel more people into the game.

Imagine a world where houses were sold the same as many other commodities, where the real asking price is listed as the first person to offer that closed the sale.

Right. So if I'd listed the house at the inflated value, you'd have been OK with that?

The problem with this is that houses aren't like most other commoddities but I do agree, there's a lot of underhand tactics going on.

I feel no house should go up for sale without and independant surveyors report at the very least - would save a lot of time and money in the longer run!

But it's a totally arbitrary number. The house is worth what someone will pay for it, no more, no less. That's the valuation.

If two estate agents give "valuations" that are 50k apart, which do you go with as the asking price? If it's the lower one, then I'm wasting people's time. If it's the higher one, them I'm a greedy profiteer.

And I know you have very strong political views on this, but if anyone is viewing houses when the initial asking price is their absolute maximum budget, they are exposing themselves to wasted time and stress.

In France you have to accept the listed price.