The shitehawk that is the Irish property market. WWYD

[TheMaven]

Just wondering what people would do in our situation?

Working and living in Dublin. Have a mortgage that’s affordable for us and house is great for work but it’s just too small for us now. There’s also no garden.

We had been planning on moving out of Dublin and as we’re always able to work from home a few days a week, but then Covid hit and now lots of people are going to be in the same boat.

We’ve been looking at houses around Kildare/Wicklow and prices seem to be rising. I don’t think it’s that house are going for a lot more than asking, they’re just going on the market at a higher price than before. Seems like people just like us are snapping them up which is understandable.

We saw a house last week that we really liked but it’s definitely overpriced. It’s about €40k over what you’d expect for the size of house in the area. There’s been several others viewing and there are bids at the asking price and slightly above, but there isn’t a mad frenzy or anything.
It’s still well within our budget though, but we haven’t yet bid- we’re having a second viewing tomorrow.

We’re lucky that we have two secure jobs and able to save well every month.

I do think though that we haven’t even started to see the economic impact of Covid and won’t for a while. At the moment, jobs are propped-up by PUP in a lot of areas, but I do think we’ll see more job losses and business closures down the line, unfortunately. This will then impact property prices.

We’re now at a bit of a crossroads in deciding what to do.

Do we:

A) Keep looking and accept that we might pay an inflated price for a house if we buy now.

B) Hold off for another 6-12 months and keep saving, see what happens with the housing market but the risk is that prices just keep going up and up.

We bought at the top of the market back in 2008 and have a fear of negative equity and going through that again.

If you were me, what would you do?

[turkeyboots]

Am sure I saw the IT predicting a small %drop in house prices for a year as a result of Brevity. So hanging on might help.
But also look at the other surrounding counties, Balbriggan is improving and there is the train to Connolly and the M1. Its cheaper, if significantly less glamorous NE of Dublin.

[turkeyboots]

Brexit not Brevity. Although we can hope it is.

[MarDhea]

I would move now, in your position, because I would regret it more if (1) I left things a year and house prices continued to rise, compared to (2) I bought now and prices dropped next year.

Regret minimisation - pick the option that would lead to least regret if it came to it.

But everyone is different, OP. Which would you regret more?

[Blogdog]

I would move as well OP. There is nothing to suggest that prices will drop at all over the next year or two. Demographics and lack of housing supply will continue to mean there will be many people wanting to buy and not enough houses to go around.

Will this be a ‘forever’ house? I also bought at the top of the market in 2007 so I understand that fear, however as we were in a house we intended to stay in and could manage the mortgage the negative equity wasn’t a real problem in practical terms. I do think things are different to back then though. The big problem 10 years ago was that the banks stopped lending so people couldn’t buy and so would-be sellers were stuck in their homes. Right now that doesn’t seem to be on the cards - they are much better capitalised and more cautious on lending than they were back then so the likelihood of the mortgage tap being turned off is less. I think it would take a huge brexit/COVID shock for that to change - not impossible but I think less likely, for now at least.

[Nettleskeins]

Could you buy a house in a different part of Dublin WITH a garden, less naice area less attractive house but might hold its value better for the next five years? Even if commuting took same time.

There may be a half way house IN Dublin itself.