3-4 hour commuters who bought houses question for you

MorningStar

Hi,

A friend of mine has been saying that he bought his house far from Dubblin (where he works) becasue he couldn't afford in Dublin. I argued that he was not being honest as he could afford to live in Dublin he just didn't like what he could afford. He then agreed that he though the value of what he could have gotten in Dublin made him look further. The whole argument of quality of life came up and he said he has more room and more natural surroundings so it was better. I pointed out the 3-4 hour commute he has not really indicating a great quality of life but he siad the weekends make up for it. I can easily accept that some people would feel their quality of life is better but I think it is more logical that people will say this than admit how horrible somethings are at certain points. I litterally have 20 hours extra leasure time a week and that is not forgetting the convenice to do things like pick up a pint of milk without driving for 20 minutes.

I am just wondering if you commute this kind of distance is it really worth the savings on the house? I am looking for people who chose to live this way or thosing living it and who want to talk about the reality. There is no point discussing the governemnets inaction, greedy developers or any other reason for house prices. I want to talk about the reality of the commute quality of life and access to actual services that are ther (not promised one). Are commuter time increasing or decreasing the further you are out?

ZiabR

Well i was born and rared in Swords dublin and then when i was 16 my parents decided to get out of there and move to Cavan. They are living there ever since and i moved to Louth for work etc. But my father worked and still works in Dublin city and so has to drive from Cavan to Dublin most days of the week. This can vary from 1.20 hours - 2+ hours. He says the same thing, 'it does not bother me' the life is better here in Cavan than been stuck in the city with eyes always watching.

ronbyrne2005

i'd never commute for longer than 45 mins each way per day,i'd move closer to job or get job near home.lifes too short to waste 2 hours each way or 28hours a week or 14% of your life sitting in traffic/car to get to work .celtic rat race 2006-spend half your life travelling to work and working there to afford a poxy house which you dont get to you enjoy cos your never there. my father left school at 16 worked in an average job all his life working 39hours a week for council in dublin,he could support two kids and buy a nice house in a nice area and my mother could stay at home and we were never short of anything,try doing that now! are we really better off nowadays?i think its just the rich that got richer and therefore a better standard of living.

netwhizkid

ronbyrne2005 wrote:

i'd never commute for longer than 45 mins each way per day,i'd move closer to job or get job near home.lifes too short to waste 2 hours each way or 28hours a week or 14% of your life sitting in traffic/car to get to work .celtic rat race 2006-spend half your life travelling to work and working there to afford a poxy house which you dont get to you enjoy cos your never there. my father left school at 16 worked in an average job all his life working 39hours a week for council in dublin,he could support two kids and buy a nice house in a nice area and my mother could stay at home and we were never short of anything,try doing that now! are we really better off nowadays?i think its just the rich that got richer and therefore a better standard of living.

Here Here! People rant on about the Celtic Tiger and wealth, I agree yes that in terms of figures we are much "wealthier" however try getting that €50 to buy the same amount of Groceries or other items that a IR£20 would easily have covered only 6yrs ago and still leave enough for a Pint on the way home. We are not richer today for every €100 earned per head €180 is borrowed. Everybody has a crap life and there is no services at all in this country, only a race to the bottom where Polish workers get €5 an hour to work renovating Moneypoint in Co. Clare. Irish workers would have got twice that ten yrs ago to do the same job. Now today Poles and Irish are getting rubbish wages for hard work and getting nothing in return from the Government, Low Taxes I'd rather pay high taxes and have decent public services. Stealth taxes and the prospect of working yourself into the coffin is all we are faced with today.

See my Sig to see the culprits.

JimmySmith

Thers no doubting that once you are married and have kids a nice house outside dublin city is great compared to apartment living or even tiny garden living in the city.
I would say that a 3 - 4 hour commute is overdoing it a tad.
I think people should expect to commute for 1 - 1.5 hours each way. Any less is bonus time.

So, while its easy to move within commuting distance when you dont have a house it gets a bit more complicated when you get married, have sprogs at school and then change jobs.

I had a commute of 30mins when i bought my house. Changed jobs 3 years later and now have a 1 hour 10 minute commute when i have to go into town, but zero commute when i work form home. I had no control over this commute though really. If i couldnt work form home it would be a 2:20 commute every single day and not a thing i could do about it.

Only advice i can give is that if you are going to commute make sure its less than 3 hours a day. Thats tolerable, but anymore and you would go nuts.
Most people in cities commute for an hour each way anyway. They just dont count the walk to the bus, the wait etc when they are working it out. Even walking out of an apartment building now takes 5 mins

When i was in new york form the time i closed my apartment dorr to the time i was on the street was 10 mins. Same for the time from my office to the street.

netwhizkid

JimmySmith wrote:

When i was in new york form the time i closed my apartment dorr to the time i was on the street was 10 mins. Same for the time from my office to the street.

I hate to compliment those Americans for anything but New York is one model city of Public Transportation if ever there was one. The MTA does a great job over there. Everywhere is nearly adequalty served. Those subways are an excellent idea compared to the "luas" sytem we get here:mad:

MorningStar

FOCUS PEOPLE

I would like to hear from people who are doing this commute and get them to talk about their experience.

You want to complain about the economy or anything else there are lots of other places to do that.

rubadub

People are looking at it as bonus lesiure time, I see it as wasted work time. I was offered 2 jobs at once while in college and went for the lower paid one since overall I would be paid more per hour. That is taking into account travel time.
I take less than 1 hour in total to and from work. 3-4 is more common than some may think. Some people with long commutes tend to fudge the figures, saying it takes an hour most days. Do not ask how long it takes but rather "when do you leave the house". I used to fudge figures myself, saying the bus took only 20mins, but there was a 5 min walk to it, and a 10min walk to work, and I would have to be at the bus stop 5-10mins before hand to make sure I didnt miss it. So if somebody starts at 9 and says they take 1 hour, just ask "so you leave the house at 8?" then you get the real time.

So if I went up from 1 to 4 hours per day, that is 3 hours more which would be about €40 after tax for myself, so that is €200 a week in "unpaid overtime", €866 extra per month that could go on a mortgage. Over €10,000 a year and €312,000 over my 30 year mortgage. So it can be a false economy to get an apparently cheaper house far away from work. You may be better off taking a lower paid job close to home. I have not even factored in the expense of travel either, be it trains, bus, car. The car will need more servicing, use more petrol, depreciate far quicker.

ZiabR

MorningStar wrote:

FOCUS PEOPLE

I would like to people who are doing this commute and get them to talk about their experience.

You want to complain about the economy or anything else there are lots of other places to do that.

Yeah sorry in my post i should have mentioned that i went to school 40-1hour from my house and had to commute everyday. I think it effects the quality of life because you must get up 1.5 hours earlier than the person living really close to the job/school. This has a negitive effect i feel as you are always tired etc. I would not recommend anymore that 30 mins travel to a job/school.

Gandhi

What kills me also is having to change jobs. In the old days, when you got a job at 18 or 19 that you stayed in till you were 65, it was more practical to buy a house near where you worked. I have had my house not even three years, and in that time my company relocated by about 10 miles, and then relocated to Western Canada, so I had to get a new job (in another location).

All these jobs are out in office parks in the suburbs which are barely (if at all) served by public transport. We purposely bought a house in the city near lots of public transport, so we are within walking distance of two train lines and about 20 bus routes. A whopping 0% of these will take me to my office. My wife works in the city centre so she can at least take the train to work, so we can live with one car.

So to get back on topic, even buying in the city won't help if you can't get a job there. As more and more jobs move out to suburban office parks, proximity to the highway becomes more important than proximity to the city centre, if you want to buy a house with a short commute. If I could get a guaranteed job for life, I would buy a house next door to it the next day.

Oh, and FYI my commute is about 45 + 45 minutes of driving. But I would prefer a 15 minute train ride reading the paper, rather than 45 minutes of fighting traffic. Which, in theory (and in the old days), my location should have provided.

shnaek

I think many people take short term views. A house may seem a lot cheaper outside of Dublin, but when you factor in petrol and wear and tear on the car, combined with hours lost and stress caused I am not all that sure a house outside the city is a great idea. Though I can see why families would require more space for kids - but then if both parents work the kids end up never seeing them anyway due to work and the long commute!
Like MorningStar I prefer live in the city and be able to walk to the shops, restaurants and pubs.

Beruthiel

MorningStar wrote:

I pointed out the 3-4 hour commute he has not really indicating a great quality of life but he siad the weekends make up for it.

I cannot for the life of me understand how anyone can do this.
since I moved from Chapelizod the Celbridge, my travel time has gone from 15 mins up to 1 hour plus, traveling to work.
I love where I live now and won't change that.
I have been getting the bus but the service is sooooo bad to Celbridge that I am in the process of buying a car.
I have done the bus thing since last june, I hate it with a vengence and I feel my life is passing me by while I wait anywhere up to 30mins for a bus that may stop for me if it's not full up - the frustration of watching a bus drive by you because it's full and having to wait even longer has made the decision for me to buy the car.
I don't understand why anyone would travel all the way home just to eat dinner, go to bed, get up, go to work and do the same thing all over again. That's not living.

stovelid

I have a round commute trip of about 4 hours to work at the moment. However its the other way round for us, we bought a house in county Dublinand it is my current job that is a hike away.

I was (am) willing to do the commute for now, until another acceptable job comes up but i really didnt realise just how sapping the journey is. Not the morning trip as i just see it as time i would have been sleeping; but rather the lost time in the evenings.

stovelid

dude, provided you can get on it; at least you can sleep or listen to your ipod on a bus...try going at a snails pace in an LA-esque queue of traffic as muppets and other assorted twats drive by on the hard shoulder or try and cut you out to gain a clearly essential 2 minutes in the office.

Bitter, moi

Beruthiel wrote:

I cannot for the life of me understand how anyone can do this.
since I moved from Chapelizod the Celbridge, my travel time has gone from 15 mins up to 1 hour plus, traveling to work.
I love where I live now and won't change that.
I have been getting the bus but the service is sooooo bad to Celbridge that I am in the process of buying a car.
I have done the bus thing since last june, I hate it with a vengence and I feel my life is passing me by while I wait anywhere up to 30mins for a bus that may stop for me if it's not full up - the frustration of watching a bus drive by you because it's full and having to wait even longer has made the decision for me to buy the car.
I don't understand why anyone would travel all the way home just to eat dinner, go to bed, get up, go to work and do the same thing all over again. That's not living.

MorningStar

logik wrote:

This has a negitive effect i feel as you are always tired etc. I would not recommend anymore that 30 mins travel to a job/school.

Actually that is a huge problem with some of my friends. One of them normally goes to bed before 9pm to get enough sleep to go to work. If he comes out (has to sleep over with somebody) he falls asleep in the pub so he doesn't go out that much at all due to the combined hassle. I have gone out to his but the nearest pub is so far away it can only mean drinking in his house. Due to the long commute he also doesn't know any of his neighbours to talk to at all.
I really find the quality of life argument so far removed from reality that it seems to be absurd. If I wanted to be going to bed at 9pm and having a working day including commute of 12 hours and on top of that anytime I do something it takes masses of time (grocer shoping, cinema, video shop, etc...) I certainly wouldn't say that makes my quality of life better.

rubadub

stovelid wrote:

Not the morning trip as i just see it as time i would have been sleeping; but rather the lost time in the evenings.

But surely you have even more lost time in the evenings as you have to sleep earlier to catch up on that lost sleep, like Morningstar's mate.

ronbyrne2005

yeah i think a vast amount of irish people are getting too little sleep during the week and then at weekend when they should be catching up on their sleep they go to pub or drink at home which actually meks you more tired and fecks up your sleep or else they have to get up early at weekends too for the kids and family things which they cant enjoy as much as they are knackered from the working week

MorningStar

Don't foreget that driving when tired is as dangerous as drink driving under many conditions. Some say more dangerous. A young family casues a good lack of sleep anyway so combine that effect as well.

ZiabR

MorningStar wrote:

Don't foreget that driving when tired is as dangerous as drink driving under many conditions. Some say more dangerous. A young family casues a good lack of sleep anyway so combine that effect as well.

Yeah this is very true, small children tend to keep their parents up at night and this adding to earily starts and late evening traffic is not a good combination.

Gurgle

JimmySmith wrote:

Thers no doubting that once you are married and have kids a nice house outside dublin city is great compared to apartment living or even tiny garden living in the city.
I would say that a 3 - 4 hour commute is overdoing it a tad.
I think people should expect to commute for 1 - 1.5 hours each way. Any less is bonus time.

1.5 hours each way is a 3 hour commute.

Any less is bonus time?
You think 15 hours per week is a reasonable time to get to and from a 39 hour per week job?

IMO, any more than 30 minutes to drive 20 miles is concrete evidence that the infrastructure is pathetically under-developed.

ronbyrne2005

people forget how important sleep is for you, people who get too little sleep for lots of their life are more likely to die younger and suffer from more health problems

stovelid

Actually would probably just lie on like a lazy c*nt if i had the extra hours in the morning. :0) Just meant that it hurts more in the evenings because that when you chill out, do enjoybale stuff, relax etc

rubadub wrote:

But surely you have even more lost time in the evenings as you have to sleep earlier to catch up on that lost sleep, like Morningstar's mate.

LegacyUser

I really can't afford to live in Dublin. I would probabaly have to save half my wages for the next 2years, and thats just isn't possible.
I am probabaly going to move to Portarlington and commute because I can buy a 3 bed property, with 3 bathrooms, for €195k, and the same property would cost me twice that in Dublin.

rubadub

sillysausage wrote:

I really can't afford to live in Dublin. I would probabaly have to save half my wages for the next 2years, and thats just isn't possible.
I am probabaly going to move to Portarlington and commute because I can buy a 3 bed property, with 3 bathrooms, for €195k, and the same property would cost me twice that in Dublin.

Did you check out my bit on costs involved? WORKABLE time wasted rather than leisure. Depends on your job I suppose but if somebody was doing a menial job that they could pick up anywhere it is far better to work close to home and simply work those extra hours as overtime if you can, rather than spend the time and spend the money commuting.

magpie

I'd rather live in a shoebox I could walk to work / the city centre from than live in a 4 bedroom Dallas Ranch in Kildare/Meath/Cavan/Insert Name of Sh1thole here.

For some bizarre reason lots of Irish people in their 20s seem to think that buying a house is a lifetime investment and they have to have 4 bedrooms and a garage in order to have room for the kids they might have in 10 years time. As a result they're happy to be stuck in a car/stuck with inflexible trains/busses to get out to their dull sub-suburban identikit lego housing estate so they can sit around watching telly and admiring their 30 foot back garden through the veil of pssing rain that hangs over these dank conformity factories.

Enjoy your big houses kids, I'll be in the pub/cinema/restaurant/theatre 5 minutes after I leave work.

MorningStar

sillysausage wrote:

I really can't afford to live in Dublin. I would probabaly have to save half my wages for the next 2years, and thats just isn't possible.
I am probabaly going to move to Portarlington and commute because I can buy a 3 bed property, with 3 bathrooms, for €195k, and the same property would cost me twice that in Dublin.

Ok that is your decsision but how much is it going to cost you to commute? The time you spend traveling having value. The cost of a car and replacement of such car on country roads and distance.

The really big question is do you need 3 bedrooms?

Effectively if you have read this thread you are telling us that you are willing to kill yourself to have 4 hours to enjoy in the house on a week day basis (8 hours sleep+4 hours commuting +8 hours in work). You will lose friends and the ability to go out, put your life at risk etc... all for a house that you will spend 30 years paying off. Why do you want the house so bad?

magpie

with 3 bathrooms

In fairness I would rather kill myself than have to live somewhere that didn't have at least 3 bathrooms.

Siogfinsceal

id hate to live in dublin tbh dont like cities. I live near naas and drive to saggart it takes 40 minutes. Yet I can drive from leitrim to mullingar in less than that mad

_Kaiser_

The problem here lies with the Irish belief (obsession is pretty close to the mark too) that you MUST own a house in order to be judged successful. There's also the "keeping up with the Jones'" mentality to factor in.

Personally I'm with the majority of the posters in this thread. Having a house is all well and good but not at the cost of spending 3/4 hours of your life each day in traffic (though ironically it took me LESS time in the car than it ever did with Diublin Bus, and that's reduced still further since I changed jobs in the summer), getting up so early and home so late that you're just knackered all the time, and having to commute EVERYWHERE, be it the pub, the shops etc.

In my mind there's no quality of life there...

MorningStar

Siogfinsceal wrote:

id hate to live in dublin tbh dont like cities. I live near naas and drive to saggart it takes 40 minutes. Yet I can drive from leitrim to mullingar in less than that mad

Well if you hate cities that is fine but if all your friends family live in the city and you work there you would have a problem. People have all of that in the city and move out based on "value for money" and "quality of life" but neither exist for them.

rubadub

magpie wrote:

For some bizarre reason lots of Irish people in their 20s seem to think that buying a house is a lifetime investment and they have to have 4 bedrooms and a garage in order to have room for the kids they might have in 10 years time.

Yes, seems that way. you can buy and sell the house as the family grows, keeping a big house warm costs a fair bit, and cleaning it is more wasted time.

magpie wrote:

In fairness I would rather kill myself than have to live somewhere that didn't have at least 3 bathrooms.

time to give up the vindaloos

Buttony

My commute takes upto 4 hrs per day.

I live in the country and wouldn't change it for the world. I love where I live and love the fact that if I wake up in the morning and decide if I want to tell my boss where to stick his job I can without having to loose my home. I also can afford to take a day off a week to spend with my daughter.
My husband was able to pack in his job and take a lot lower paid job closer to home.

I do in the future see an end to my commute but at the moment wouldn't change the decision we made. I wouldn't be prepared to sell my soul to the banks for a shoe box in a city I would hate to live in just so I could be close to my job.

LegacyUser

MorningStar wrote:

Ok that is your decsision but how much is it going to cost you to commute? The time you spend traveling having value. The cost of a car and replacement of such car on country roads and distance.

The really big question is do you need 3 bedrooms?

Effectively if you have read this thread you are telling us that you are willing to kill yourself to have 4 hours to enjoy in the house on a week day basis (8 hours sleep+4 hours commuting +8 hours in work). You will lose friends and the ability to go out, put your life at risk etc... all for a house that you will spend 30 years paying off. Why do you want the house so bad?

It will take just over an hour to get from portarlington to sandymount thanks to the train and dart, I tried it out the other day and was amazed.
It takes just over an hour now to get from whitehall to sandymount on the Number 3 bus.

I am not sure on the cost of transport, but I have checked with work and there is an element of travel allowance in my wage package, so all in all it really will work out much better for me.

I probabaly don't need 3 bathrooms, but I am planning ahead.
I think that the value of property in Portarlington will rise in the next 5 years, due to the improvement and development of amenities that is scheduled, and also the fact that a lot of people are being priced out of Kildare, and will move further along the commuter belt.
My plan is to buy in Portarlington, perhaps making some minor improvements to the house (my dad is a carpenter and my brother is an electrician) and then to sell in about 5 years and return to Dublin.
By that stage the value of the house will hvae increased, as will my salary and it will be fair easier for me to afford a house or apartment that I actually like, in the capital.



*Edited to add info

MorningStar

sillysausage wrote:

It will take just over an hour to get from port to work and it takes just over an hour now to gte from whitehall to sandymount.
I am not sure on cost of transport, but I have checked with work and there is an element of travel allowance in my wage package, so all in all it really will work out much better for me.

Don't assume commutinng times will stay as is. There are over 350 units being put in off the Beaumont Road for example so people further out have to deal with these commuters too. Developments between Port and Dublin will increase as will congestion.

Do you need 3 bedrooms?
Why must you own a house so baddly?
What can you actually afford closer to Dublin?
Are you willing to give up your firends?

bonkey

magpie wrote:

For some bizarre reason lots of Irish people in their 20s seem to think that buying a house is a lifetime investment and they have to have 4 bedrooms and a garage in order to have room for the kids they might have in 10 years time. As a result they're happy to be stuck in a car/stuck with inflexible trains/busses to get out to their dull sub-suburban identikit lego housing estate so they can sit around watching telly and admiring their 30 foot back garden through the veil of pssing rain that hangs over these dank conformity factories.

Enjoy your big houses kids, I'll be in the pub/cinema/restaurant/theatre 5 minutes after I leave work.

Yup, and in 10 years time, unless there's a big change in the market, you won't be able to afford a big house for your kids etc, while they will be already sorted. They may even be able to afford to move back towards the city without trading down, while those who got on the ladder later will have to move outwards to afford moving up.

Getting onto the propertly ladder lessens the impact of massive house-price rises, but doesn't negate it. Getting as high up the ladder as quickly as possible more-or-less negates it, but can come back and sting you if the market ever falls apart. Given the housing shortage still endemic around Dublin...not likely to be any day soon.

Kaiser2000 wrote:

The problem here lies with the Irish belief (obsession is pretty close to the mark too) that you MUST own a house in order to be judged successful.

This was brought home to me about 5 years ago when I was talking to the bloke standing behind me in the check-in line at the airport. He was on his way to Spain to check on the properties being built that he and a chunk of mates had invested in. I asked if it was for retirement, holidaying, investment, or what....and the answer staggered me.

"Well, houses in Ireland are too expensive, but you still have to own a house"

Okaaaaaaaaaay.

jc

formatman

some of the problem is that Banks don't take into account the amount of money people spend on petrol on these commutes when looking at maximum morgage approval amounts

what people spend on petrol sometimes would be the extra amount they could pay on a morgage to allow them to live where they want to live .....

_Kaiser_

But sure the banks/building societies etc don't care. This obsession people have about getting on the "property ladder" works for them either way.

Personally I don't give a toss whether not owning my own house means I'm judged unsuccessful in other people's eyes. I'd rather have the few extra quid to enjoy my life as I see fit and be home in 35 mins, be 20 mins from town and have every shop I might ever need 5 mins away rather than paying it into the already overinflated profit margins of the above mentioned institutions - all so I can live in the middle of nowhere and away from my friends and family while telling myself that "yes, life is so much better this way" ??

Until people just stop paying these stupid house prices however the situation will only get worse, and when the crash DOES come it'll hit all the harder!

LegacyUser

MorningStar wrote:

Do you need 3 bedrooms?
Why must you own a house so baddly?
What can you actually afford closer to Dublin?
Are you willing to give up your firends?

Do you need 3 bedrooms?
Yes, if I want to assist mortgage repayments by renting the 2 additional rooms.

Why must you own a house so baddly?
I value the importance of property ownership. I think it is a very worthwhile investment and I would very much like to get onto the property ladder ASAP.

What can you actually afford closer to Dublin?
Very little, if anything, the very most I have been quoted when searching for a mortgage is €200k - We both know that I won't get anything for that money in Dublin. Perhaps, at a push I could purchase within Dublins affordable housing scheme areas, but, and without sugar coating it, they are not areas that I would feel safe living in.

Are you willing to give up your firends?
I wouldn't be giving up my friends, Portarlington is only 40minutes from town, as it is I have friends in port and I go down there every other weekend.
I could continue to spend one week end in port, and one weekend in Dublin, spending the weekend in my current bedroom at my parents house, and maintain all of my current friendships.

HelterSkelter

For once MorningStar, I gotta agree with you!! I for one wouldn't want to spend my weekdays working...commuting...sleeping...commuting...working...commuting...sleeping.... and only have leisure time at weekends.

newestUser

sillysausage wrote:

By that stage the value of the house will hvae increased, as will my salary and it will be fair easier for me to afford a house or apartment that I actually like, in the capital.

Loath as I am to get involved in all this finger-wagging at peoples lifestyle-choices/general whinging, it's worth pointing out that you can't assume that the value of a property or your salary (presuming you're not on a public sector salary scale) will have increased in five years...nor can you assume that the increase in the value of a property in portarlington will be proportional to the increase in prices in dublin (ie portarlington may rise 20%, but dublin could rise 40%?)

other than that tho, if you want to make the move for portarlington and feel the commute by public transport is manageable, by all means go for it!

Gurgle

Kaiser2000 wrote:

The problem here lies with the Irish belief (obsession is pretty close to the mark too) that you MUST own a house in order to be judged successful. There's also the "keeping up with the Jones'" mentality to factor in.

Theres more to it:
> Rent is dead money. Tens of thousand per year and you get nothing out of it. Ever.
>The money you spend renting a decent 1 bed flat in phibsboro will pay the mortgage on a 3-bed semi in clonee or a 4 bed detached house on an acre in Cavan.
> Rent goes up year on year, so you're always paying at the rate of your first mortgage year. When you buy a property, after 5 years you're paying much less in mortgage than it would cost you to rent.

Kaiser2000 wrote:

Personally I'm with the majority of the posters in this thread. Having a house is all well and good but not at the cost of spending 3/4 hours of your life each day in traffic

The problem is that so many people want the city job and the small town living. That should be possible of course, as the distances involved are tiny but we don't (and probably never will) have a proper transport infrastructure.

connundrum

3 bed house in Portarlington = €800pm mortagage (rough estimate of course)
1 bed apartment in Dublin = €1100 mortagage (")

3 bed house in Portarlington = 2 beds available for rent = €400 - €450pm off your morgage immediately.
1 bed apartment in Dublin = €1100 mortagage (unchanged).. unless you want to rent out your living room.

Monthly Luas/bus and rail ticket from Portarlington = €222.20 (part subsidised by work)
Monthly bus ticket in Dublin = €80 (no subsidy)

Pint of Guinness in Portarlington = €3.45 - €3.55
Pint of Guinness in Dublin = €3.70 - €5.90

Sometimes it really does make that much financial more sense to move down for 2-3 years. I don't think anyone is looking at a house with a view to living there for ever and ever amen. People just need the most affordable starting point from which to build upwards.

_Kaiser_

Gurgle wrote:

Theres more to it:
> Rent is dead money. Tens of thousand per year and you get nothing out of it. Ever.
>The money you spend renting a decent 1 bed flat in phibsboro will pay the mortgage on a 3-bed semi in clonee or a 4 bed detached house on an acre in Cavan.
> Rent goes up year on year, so you're always paying at the rate of your first mortgage year. When you buy a property, after 5 years you're paying much less in mortgage than it would cost you to rent.

Ah the "dead money" argument. So what? Maybe I don't WANT to be stuck paying a fortune on a house I'm never there to enjoy because I'm commuting hours every day. Maybe I'm happy to let the landlord worry about the upkeep of the house and the equipment in it. I'm sorry but this argument does nothing for me.

Incidentially, I share a big enough house in Blanch with a few lads. We all have a laugh, everyone does their bit and my rent is definitely less than a mortgage would be on a property of equivalent size.

"So buy and rent out rooms" I hear you say. But then it's not really "my" place is it? I'd still be sharing AND I'd be a landlord.

The problem is that so many people want the city job and the small town living. That should be possible of course, as the distances involved are tiny but we don't (and probably never will) have a proper transport infrastructure.

Exactly, and this is why things are only going to get worse as people don't think about the infrastructure surrounding or leading to their "dream" home.

MorningStar

connundrum wrote:

3 bed house in Portarlington = €800pm mortagage (rough estimate of course)
1 bed apartment in Dublin = €1100 mortagage (")

What about the cost of a car? If you live away from things you need a car.

connundrum wrote:

3 bed house in Portarlington = 2 beds available for rent = €400 - €450pm
1 bed apartment in Dublin = €1100 mortagage.. unless you want to rent out your living room.

Who are you going to rent to. If the economy turns even slightly the people will stay and work in the cities.

connundrum wrote:

Monthly Luas/bus and rail ticket from Portarlington = €222.20 (part subsidised by work)
Monthly bus ticket in Dublin = €80 (no subsidy)

connundrum wrote:

Pint of Guinness in Portarlington = €3.45 - €3.55
Pint of Guinness in Dublin = €3.70 - €5.90

GUiness in dublin starts at €3. Many good and products are actually cheaper in Dublin due to competition. Lack of choice and no facilities in most cases, such as cinemas,shops etc...

connundrum wrote:

Sometimes it really does make that much financial more sense to move down for 2-3 years. I don't think anyone is looking at a house with a view to living there for ever and ever amen. People just need the most affordable starting point from which to build upwards.

Moving down for 3 years and then back relies on house price rises. Dublin house prices rises faster. If prices go down you are stuck there and your property will devalue quicker.

HelterSkelter

sillysausage wrote:

It will take just over an hour to get from portarlington to sandymount thanks to the train and dart, I tried it out the other day and was amazed.

Yeah but is that from the door of your house to the door of your job? How long does that REALLY take?

sillysausage wrote:

I think that the value of property in Portarlington will rise in the next 5 years...

...sell in about 5 years and return to Dublin.
By that stage the value of the house will hvae increased, as will my salary and it will be fair easier for me to afford a house or apartment that I actually like, in the capital.

But won't the property in Dublin increase as well? Assume a property increase of 40% in the next 5 years:

Portarlington: Now €200,000 - 5 years time €280,000
Dublin: Now €400,000 - 5 years time: €560,000

So the price difference between your house in Portarlington and the one in Dublin is currently €200,000 but in five years time it will be €360,000. It will be even further out of your reach.

JimmySmith

connundrum wrote:

3 bed house in Portarlington = €800pm mortagage (rough estimate of course)
1 bed apartment in Dublin = €1100 mortagage (")

3 bed house in Portarlington = 2 beds available for rent = €400 - €450pm
1 bed apartment in Dublin = €1100 mortagage.. unless you want to rent out your living room.

Monthly Luas/bus and rail ticket from Portarlington = €222.20 (part subsidised by work)
Monthly bus ticket in Dublin = €80 (no subsidy)

Pint of Guinness in Portarlington = €3.45 - €3.55
Pint of Guinness in Dublin = €3.70 - €5.90

Sometimes it really does make that much financial more sense to move down for 2-3 years. I don't think anyone is looking at a house with a view to living there for ever and ever amen. People just need the most affordable starting point from which to build upwards.

I think you're talking sense here.
Lets say your total commute is 2 hours a day.
Divide what you save a month by the number of hours a month to commute and you'll get an idea of what the cost is to you etc.
Most people are only too happy to work overtime for a few extra euro, but if you think of your extra commute as overtime and put a monetary value on the time the commuting doesnt sound so bad at all.

connundrum

MorningStar wrote:

What about the cost of a car? If you live away from things you need a car..

Point taken, living in Dublin and paying the car expenses at the moment so no real cost differences.

MorningStar wrote:

Who are you going to rent to. If the economy turns even slightly the people will stay and work in the cities..

For the time being the rental market is stable enough and if I am able to get 2-3 good years out of it then I'll be happy. At the moment I can afford an €800 hit to my monthly salary, I cannot afford a €1100 hit.

MorningStar wrote:

GUiness in dublin starts at €3. Many good and products are actually cheaper in Dublin due to competition. Lack of choice and no facilities in most cases, such as cinemas,shops etc....

The Guinness may have been a bad example (but show me where this €3 pint is?! ) Every rural town now has the local Dunnes or Tesco where the prices are to the nationwide standard. Clothes shops etc.. well I'll concede that. There aren't the ammenities available ie. gyms, entertainment etc. But there as some things..

MorningStar wrote:

Moving down for 3 years and then back relies on house price rises. Dublin house prices rises faster. If prices go down you are stuck there and your property will devalue quicker.

I don't think I'm relying on prices to rise at all, if they stabilize then I'll be in the same position as I am now. What the intervening 3 years will have done is give me a good credit rating with my mortgage company, who will now see me as a better prospect for a bigger, better house in Dublin - which is where I want to eventually be.

This argument will inevitably go round and round, and it does boil down to whether you want/place a value on owning your own property. I do, some don't. Who wins? The bank either way. :rolleyes:

JimmySmith wrote:

I think you're talking sense here.
Lets say your total commute is 2 hours a day.
Divide what you save a month by the number of hours a month to commute and you'll get an idea of what the cost is to you etc.
Most people are only too happy to work overtime for a few extra euro, but if you think of your extra commute as overtime and put a monetary value on the time the commuting doesnt sound so bad at all.

Yeah.. em.. yeh

LegacyUser

HelterSkelter wrote:

Portarlington: Now €200,000 - 5 years time €280,000
Dublin: Now €400,000 - 5 years time: €560,000

I reckon in 5 years time I may be ready to buy with my partner, the property that I buy now will be bought on my income alone.

To be totally honest, even if it did become the case that I never sold my house and moved to Dublin, I really don't think the commuting would be the end of the world.

Also, I don't think Dublin is the only place that I could work with my qualifications, and in my chosen industry.

I could move my life to Portarlington, or the surrounding areas.

I know that some of you are only trying to 'talk sense' into me, but I honestly have given this a lot of thought and I do believe that, on my current salary etc, the move to Port right now would be the right move for me.

I am lucky in that I can live between Dublin and Port thanks to my parents, so I could live here all week and go to Port at weekends for the 1st year or so if I wanted to.

My circumstances are unique, and I do think that this move could work really well for me.

stovelid

Kaiser, do you think there might come a time where some people just want to come home and not have three or four non-related people in your gaff? Dont take the question the wrong way, just asking. I was a happy enough renter until sharing a house (and the arbitrary rent rises) just started to do my nut in. I got tired of having no final say over my own environment. Also the fact that rental rights do not exist here. Its a case of "make ever increasing payments to my mortgage mate, don't change the furnishing/ make noise or f*ck off".

Another thing was that - given long term rent rises - I honestly thought that renting was not cheaper over 25+ years.

Without sounding like a pontificating git, the worst thing for me coming back to Dublin was how many people in the mid 20s are obsessed with property (I'm 35). This is not a criticism, just something that makes me sad..almost like people here are not allowed to enjoy their 20s. The thought of home ownership wouldnt have crossed my mind in a fit when i was 25 (wish it had in a way!) as i had better things to spend my money on.

Kaiser2000 wrote:

Incidentially, I share a big enough house in Blanch with a few lads. We all have a laugh, everyone does their bit and my rent is definitely less than a mortgage would be on a property of equivalent size.

magpie

Yup, and in 10 years time, unless there's a big change in the market, you won't be able to afford a big house for your kids etc, while they will be already sorted. They may even be able to afford to move back towards the city without trading down, while those who got on the ladder later will have to move outwards to afford moving up.

In reality its more likely that I'd be able to sell my 2 bed apartment in the city in 10 years and buy a 4 bed house somewhere grim outright with the equity I've accrued in the interim - property in the city increases in value at a much higher rate than in CommuterTown X. Whereas those who buy in CommuterTown X in order to have the bigger house now will never be able to buy back into the city and are condemning themselves to a lifetime of Sky Sports and Am Dram at the local Arts Centre.

stovelid

Magpie is a a bitter ex-suburbanite. I claim my 10 quid :0)