When you walk past a big house

Pity that the Harry Enfield considerably richer than you clips are such poor quality on Youtube, would be a prime opportunity to post one.

They may be very smart and have worked hard in well paying jobs, they may have their own successful business or may have inherited money or won money, they may be mortgaged to the hilt and be eating beans on toast 😆. Who knows.

In rural Ireland I see a lot of McMansions still being built, 3000 or 4000 sq foot houses. I do wonder why they need them. In this cold climate they will have to heat these houses. Environmentally speaking they aren’t great for the environment. To answer your question though my first thought wouldn’t be how did they afford it but why do they need such a big house in the first place?

I'd be thinking if I owned it how I'd do it up or I'd be thinking I'd redo the garden.

That's a bizarre post really, how could every big house in Ireland be owned by a dealer.

Tech and pharma companies gave very generous stock options in the 90's and 00's.

These share prices have soared

A low rank Facebook employee would have easily had 2,000+ options. Even after paying tax, they'd be worth 500k+

Middle rank would have had more.

Now think of all the other companies who gave share options and the value those shares rose to.

That's a lot of fine houses

IME the majority of Muck Mansions are not owned by drug dealers or surgeons but by people with average jobs who built a big house on Daddy's land. They'd have the attitude that if you're building one off house and have plenty of land, you might as well build a big one as a small one. I woudn't consider these people wealthy and would regard such a house as a millstone around my neck. I'd much rather an average house with lots of sheds and space around it for storing scrap cars and other junk.

I usually just ask myself why the f**k you'd want a house that big? Some of the enormous houses in the countryside make zero sense to me at all. Must cost a fortune to heat, it's just a waste of space to me.

If you have to ask how much it costs to heat, then you can't afford it...

I think a lot of people just don't grasp just how stupidly wealthy some people are. Just how enormous the wealth disparity is in this country.

People spend more on a piece of garden furniture than the average worker earns in a year, and they will still think they're paying too much in tax and are being unfairly treated...

A lot of these "McMansions" are built with delusions of grandeur and status - they probably are up to their tits in debt to pay for same.

Imagine the heating and maintenance costs of these places....

A few years in, suddenly people realise the cost of upkeep on these mansions far outweighs their income and the novelty of having a "big house" starts to wear off.

Have a look on daft.ie and you'll see any amount of these dream homes up for sale due to re-possession, marriage breakdowns, downsizing, etc.

it's not even about the money, why would you want to waste that much gas or oil or whatever to heat an enormous house and space you don't need? never made sense to me. if my partner and i were to sell our small dublin houses we could buy one of these behemoths outside of dublin easily but it just does not compute for me.

There's plenty of rich people in Ireland Also property was a lot cheaper in the 90s than it is now most drug dealers live in ordinary 3 bed houses .people also inherit old houses from their parents . There's plenty of rich business people who will buy a house for millions of euros .

Have a friend who built a McMansion on their parents land back around 2010 when the price of building was rock bottom. The house is massive, circa 400sqm. Even their car garage which is a double storey building with stairs inside it is the size of a 3 bed semi detatched house.

Ultimately though they've come to regret it as its just too big which means the cost of everything inside the house is doubled, tripled and often more. So instead of a normal 6 place dining table they've got a 12 place one because the dining room has tons of space to fill and a 6 seater would look stupid in such a big room. Same with the sofa, instead of a 3 seater and 2 armchair set up its a custom made sofa that would seat about 12 people. Kitchen countertops so vast that you could fit a brigade of chefs at them. Even the console table when you enter the front door is like almost 2 meters long and the two lamps on it are giant sized to fit the space. So everything inside it cost them a fortune and now almost 15 years on stuff needs replacing and they cant afford things like €10,000 for a new custom sofa. The gutters need replacing and the quote they had was €7k because theres so much of them.It just goes on and one. And then theres the cost of a cleaner for a place that big, €5k a year they pay. Plus their electricity costs are massive heating such a big space, they've had bills of over €1,000 for just two months supply.

The thing has become a millstone around their neck and now in a few years their kids are moving out to go to college so the massive cavernous house will feel even more empty. He's confided in me that although they both have a decent wage it just gets swallowed up maintaining the house, theres always another bill or cost to pay and a massive house equals massive bills. They actually feel trapped because if they could they would sell it and buy a smaller house but they cant as its on parents land who live just up the road from them. So selling up would be effectively moving away from home and selling the land donated to them as well as moving the grandkids away from the grandparents, there would be war if they did that. So they're stuck literally ploughing a huge wad of their disposable income into just running this massive house that is way too big for their needs and now they cant sell it and correct their mistake.

I certainly never think dealer when i see a large house. Just that the owners have done well for themselves and quite possibly inheritance is involved also.

Location matters though. A big house down the country might not actually cost very much, relativley speaking.

A 3 bed home in the best areas of Dublin could cost 1 million +, whereas 750k would buy you a huge mansion down some parts of the country.

But the big houses in Dublin are mad money and there a lot of them. Especially coastal Dublin.

It really shows how much money there is in the city. But fair play to the owners.

Due to humanities actions since the industrial revolution we have seen a rise in global temperatures. It is beholden on every organisation and individual to reduce their carbon footprint. I really wonder at people of the likes that drive big cars (suvs) and build mcmansions. What is the rationale? It's nearly all non 'old money' people aswell. I really do hope that we don't become too americanised and equate money with class.

Big houses near where I live..

doctor in one, retired consultant, husband and wife both retired doctors, one was a cardiologist, retired early, his heart wasn’t in it anymore…..also next door is a dermatologist… I don’t know her but I’m told she’s a good skin…

I hear you can get a cream for that…

Having seen many drug dealers' homes I certainly wouldn't assume they own a big house. It is one way to get CAB paying attention to you is living beyond your provable income. Incredibly expensive car in a driveway of a council house is a good indicator of a dealer

You come across as very bitter.

People who spend 40k+ on outdoor furniture are few and far between.

Maybe the JP McManus types, not the average high-end wage worker.

Here's one I know of. Widower farmer living in old house, the new motorway would be passing close enough for him to be entitled to a new build, which he gets.

Daughters marriage breaks down and he offers her a move in withy him, she politely declined sayin the kids would drive him mad. So on quiet he has another mcmansion built beside his for her, but then the truth comes out, she wants to stay in the town.

So two mcmansions later paid for by compulsory purchase order money and the last i heard he preferred living back in the old house.

There's people/ families with 'old money' and same with 'new money'. They both carry on as described in OP.

The rest of us exist to serve them.