It seems to be more a Dublin thing, this all-or-nothing approach to accommodation i.e. live with your parents or buy. I know so many Dubliners who lived with their parents well into their late 20s then over-leveraged themselves to get on the ‘ladder’ compared to us provincials who haven’t much choice. It’s partly a sign of how stigmatised renting has been and partly, I suspect, not wanting to countenance any drop in living standards that comes from having to pay for your own NTL package and cupboard staples. A friend of mine finally moved out of the parental nest at 29 and was outraged at how much stuff you had to buy – “I mean, having to buy SALT and stuff!”, he fumed…
I’ve mentioned on here before that some kind of renter’s association might be a good idea at this stage of the game.
The work of this association would be along the lines of:
a. Call for and lobby for higher standards in shell and fittings and furniture - assessment of same should be incorporated in some kind of a grading system or standards (inferior shell, furnishings and fittings shoulds imply large rental discounts etc.).
b. Call for and lobby for more places to be available unfurnished.
c. Call for and lobby for facilitation of longer term renting arrangements
d. Public naming and shaming of landlords who do not live up to their duty both as legislated and/or in spirit.
e. Provide educational resources for renters - both in terms of their duties and responsibilities towards landlords (since some renters do actually deserve to be treated the way they are by some landlords) and in what they should expect in return.
f. Monitor the rental market for price fixing, collusion, cartels, tacit social agreements among the landlord class etc.
Once NAMA comes in, they will certainly have a focus on the rental market - if they can extract higher rents, then this in turn supports higher yields and thus higher house prices. In addition, I would say that the rental market in Ireland at present is quite a soft target in this regard.
I think renters need to start looking more proactively towards the betterment of their interests. The ‘stigmatisation’ that paracetamol talks about needs to be swung around the other way. Otherwise, we may be in for a (nother) shafting.
EDIT - g. lobby against apartments and houses being held back from the rental market etc.
I’d say it’s down to the generally low quality of rental accommodation in Dublin coupled with its high price. It’s very difficult to find value unless you want to live with other people even now.
How can this lady on 75k not afford her stupid grange shoebox. “It has now become too much of a struggle and a stress to pay for”.
“It was only a one bedroom apartment she could afford” - even for that money she could have bought a house if she had not been seduced by the spirit of gracious living.
It looks like is an exercise by the newspapers in helping to removing all guilt from their conscience for helping to chain people up for 30-40 years. They are going “look, these smart people didnt see it coming, neither did we, or anyone”. It reminds me of the FF style of “it was nobodys fault” / “it was everyones fault” / “it was lehmans” / “it was international factors” / “can i have a 10k lottery win please and artist exemption for my autobiography”
Ehh no. If you want a good sex life without the hassle of paying a mortgage, you rent and the handy thing is that you only need one bedroom (i.e. houseshare), which is a heck of a lot cheaper than paying a mortgage on a whole house/apartment.
Firstly, let me just say that I really hate it when some folk on here generalise about how all twenty-something-year-old’s have some sort of Celtic Tiger entitlement complex.
Secondly, I know the dentist 'wan and that article and she personification of the Celtic Tiger entitlement complex. Some people don’t seem to realise that life is difficult, and that you don’t always get everything you want. I’m not saying a dentist should be struggling to get by, but it’s not realistic that such a person has a new car every year, goes on several exotic holidays, spends thousands on clothes and has the social life of a student.
I know a few people like this. Several foreign holidays a year, horribly overpriced PPR, second “investment” property, generally spend money like it’s going out of fashion. They’re also the first to complain about how desperately unfair everything is.
People can be perfectly nice, intelligent and all that but terrible with money. The problem (as we all know) is that Irish society has upturned all logic to ensure that people who are the worst with money win every time therefore people who are bad with money not only have no incentive to learn they’d be foolish to learn!
Baily Point in Salthill Galway has loads of pretentious pictures of well to do smug young couples generally looking like assholes. Can’t find the pics online.
on closer inspection, the grange and mount st annes and bloomfield are all designed by award winning architects o’mahony pike , spot the similarities (besides the huge price tag)