Things that strike me

If you live in Ireland, you’ll be aware that there are a couple of memes that crop up from time to time of which the weather is one, and property is another.

Property is something I have had an interest in for 10 years, since I lived here, in fact, and discovered that renting in Ireland for the long term was conceptually not known. My interest has been hampered by not being able to afford to buy property so instead, I patrol the internet fora explaining why this is not sustainable.

Ireland had 2 received truths, viz:

1. rent is dead money; and
2. property always goes up.

We know now that neither is really true. Rent is money paid for a service and the nominal value of property has been falling in Ireland for the last 3 years.

Last year I moved from a little town outside Dublin back into the city area for the simple reason that in a worst case scenario, I could pay the rent on my own for a while. Not desired, but not impossible. The house is in Dublin 9, on a couple of busroutes, near the gym, near the sea, not too far from work. In every way, it is ideal. The furniture provided by the landlord is comfortable, functional, and not too fashionable. By this I mean it will not date. I would actually buy the sofas myself because they are nice, comfortable and easy to keep clean. The house looks like my own, and not someone else’s because I have pictures hanging on the wall, the whole place doesn’t look like it was hit on by an interior decorator with impeccably good taste; I have a garden, and front private parking that I don’t have to worry about anyone else nicking. The rent compared very well to what I was paying in the stylish 4 year old apartment in North County Dublin that was never my own, never going to be my home and that I grew to hate by the time I got out.

Last week, my landlord informed me he wanted to put the house on the market. This was entirely unexpected as it was very clearly an investment property, and not a pseudo home bought “to live in but I’m working too far away” pad. For other reasons, too, this was unexpected, but it brought with it an offer which sweetened the pill somewhat.

People don’t know what to say to me. You see, 4 years ago they’d say things like “maybe you should consider buying” or “you know if you had bought, this wouldn’t happen”. But they cannot say this now beause if I had bought last year or four years ago or whenever, I’d be living somewhere I don’t want to live and in negative equity that I would have a great deal of difficulty in moving out of there. At least now, you know, I have freedom, the sort of freedom that is linked with working for a company that is also looking to downsize staff – imagine if I had a mortgage then.

Yes. It would be truly worrying and I wouldn’t be alone in that position either.

But I’m not going to be alone in my current position either which is landlords cashing in investment properties, eliminating their tenants so that they can sell their properties and cut their losses. Where’s the stability in that?

There’s nothing wrong with renting. Everywhere else I ever rented, apart from student halls in London had an element of security of tenure which doesn’t exist in Ireland. It’s not that the legislation isn’t there – it sort of is – it’s just the social view of renting is some completely unrealistic that it makes the Lord of the Rings look like an accurate depiction of history in the 9th century.

I have no doubt that my landlord has his good reasons for selling. I’ve had my good reasons for renting for the last 10 years. I never wanted to spend money on a property I didn’t really like and that’s served me well; I’ve wanted to live places that were near work and reasonably decent sized because smaller apartments in Ireland are hilariously poorly designed; and that’s served me well. However, because capital appreciation formed a major part of the business plans of a lot of landlords in Ireland, the supply side, while huge in numbers, is in a constant state of flux. I like the current house. There are two blackbirds living in the garden, the garden I didn’t have out in the sticks for the 4 years previous.

Most people involved in rental in France and Germany are in it for the long haul and that long haul can be 20 years or more. It is possible to form a home somewhere rented in these countries.

This house is the closest I have managed since I got here 10 years ago. It really is a pity that it isn’t home any more

This entry was posted on Friday, May 28th, 2010 at 6:45 pm and is filed under personal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.