Alison O Riordan, the Comeback!

Sponge Bob

Let's hope she delivers the goods with this new publishing venture of hers.:cool:

http://www.blogger.com/profile/18114402297094164596

Such a talent!

stovelid

Is turning freelance in January 2010 a euphemism for getting the sack?

ColeTrain

With a highly creative and inquisitive mind and very well-connected

Sounds like a cross between Albert Einstein and Tony Soprano.

rain on

"Online websites" indeed.

Dj Stiggie

Started reading some of the sh!te on the link you posted. Then I realised, thanks to you, people will go onto her blog and it'll look like we're interested. Bad form

Sanjuro

stovelid wrote: »

Is turning freelance in January 2010 as euphemism for getting the sack?

Oh, she'd get the sack, all right, wha?!*






*She actually wouldn't get the sack.

aidan_walsh

It didn't take her long to blow the "highly skilled" claim out of the water.

My wide range of personal interests and activities allow me to cover a broad range of topics in my writing and research and to date I have also written for The Irish Times, The Irish Independent and The Evening Herald including many online websites abroad.

Sir Oxman

Will she have this thread shut down...?

Wibbs

rain on wrote: »

"Online websites" indeed.

Yea I saw that and did think Wut? alright. :)

Absurdum

how's the mortgage going, Ali?

stovelid

rain on wrote: »

"Online websites" indeed.

Always handier than the offline ones, I find.

drunkmonkey

Sponge Bob wrote: »

Let's hope she delivers the goods with this new publishing venture of hers.:cool:

http://www.blogger.com/profile/18114402297094164596

Such a talent!

BoardsDeals have a lot to answer for!!!

Dravokivich

Pretentious journo starts a blog, this is a comeback?

It's hardly the '67 TV Special Elvis had.

hardCopy

I like the way her face matches the background

Yakult

Dont view it, she might actually think people give a shìt what she says!!!

mgmt

How my Irish dream home became a nightmare

October 22, 2010

Irish Central

Trendy Dublin pad now worth three times less
It was supposed to be the most exciting time of my life instead I’m trapped in a negative equity nightmare after dreams of city apartment living turned sour. I paid $740,000 for an apartment now worth roughly $265,000.

I splashed out two years ago on the trendy pad in the Dublin docklands but at the time I had no idea it would end up becoming my own financial prison.

Since reading the Irish Times Property supplement two weeks ago with the headline “A Dockland’s Deal” I have endured sleepless nights and bouts of anxiety and regret when I signed away my life without really knowing what I was getting into.

Two years ago, with help from my parents, I bought into the sought-after riverside location in Dublin 2 for the horrifying sum of $740,000.

However two years on, the corner block of the same aesthetically beautiful Grand Canal Square apartments are being offered to first-time buyers for a sickening $265,000.

All week I have thrown dirty looks to the apartments in question from my fifth-floor apartment window in the next- door building.
It’s become such a bitter taste of defeat as I stare out my window each morning that I leave the blind down continually.

Two years ago I was all guns blazing ready to embrace apartment living and swap my family home in the leafy suburbs of Rathmines for life as a city slicker.

“Contemporary designed apartments in an exceptional city-centre location” encapsulated it all for me.

Life was going to be good in the fast lane with what I envisaged would be an edgier and more cosmopolitan type of existence. I was a stylish professional, free from parents and time curfews, and now living in a bustling centre of activity, in my eyes, I had it all.

When I bought my new home in May 2008, I knew exactly what I wanted. A two-bed apartment designed for modern living with a roof garden and outdoor space with great views of the city for holding summer barbeques on balmy evenings. When I saw just this, it accelerated my impulse to buy immediately, even though the market was softening.

The two-bed showroom unit apartment on the fifth floor wasn’t exactly affordable, considering I was buying alone, but with its sleek Scandinavian furniture and skyline views I was prepared to stretch my cash limits and fork out the $740,000 sum required.

Printed in bold on the pastel-coloured brochure at the launch of the complex was the slogan: “contemporary tailored apartment living that won’t cost you the shirt on your back”. Truth is, it’s costing me that and a hell of a lot more. I now see my apartment devalue massively on a daily basis.

Trapped by negative equity, if I did decide to move, I would stand to make a massive loss on my investment. It has been reported that “those who bought a house in 2007 will have to wait until 2030 before they move out of negative equity”.

However, month after month I tirelessly continue to make bank repayments which will amount to a lot more than what the property is actually worth. It especially doesn’t help that in these early years all those monthly repayments appear to knock just fractions off the overall mortgage loan.

I ignored repeated warnings both from my parents and the Central Bank and instead ploughed in head first and handed over the money.

Only those in the same situation can understand why I am nursing an injury. It may not be of the physical kind but it’s a wound nonetheless, a deep financial one.

The market’s collapse is the worst thing that has happened many young people of my generation.

Hindsight is a very exact science and as I read the Grand Canal brochure describing the bathrooms as “white and grey flecked marble with high-spec chrome fittings, heated towel rails and mirrored cabinets”, I chastise myself for incarcerating myself in my own financial prison.

I am so worried, I can hardly think of anything else. The words “docklands deal” have dominated my life since the launch last week.

Experts say the apartment market will take longer to recover than the market for any other type of Dublin property, primarily because of oversupply.

And the most depressing thing is the value of my apartment will not rise in the foreseeable future and may fall more, so I am stuck. Each day in the newspapers, I eyeball three-bedroom houses in affluent areas on sale for around what I paid for my apartment.

At least I can put the newspaper down or flick over the page, however there is no getting away from the apartments across the street. With two-beds ranging from $320,000, this luxurious complex has turned into an “eyesore” of a development for me.

Yesterday the bill for the management fee came in. It is for $2, 227.00 – another figure I carefully choose to ignore back then. And come December 7th with the Irish budget, I will probably have a property tax on top of this.

Alison O’Riordan is a freelance journalist living in Dublin

http://alisonoriordan.com/how-my-irish-dream-home-became-a-nightmare/

LOL

stovelid

I'm suppressing a chuckle at the thought of her getting excited at all the hits the biog is suddenly getting only to realize it's just those bastards from boards again.

ColeTrain

stovelid wrote: »

I'm suppressing a chuckle at the thought of her getting excited at all the hits the biog is suddenly getting only to realize it's just those bastards from boards again.

What's the story with that? Has 'her people' come into contact with this portal?

Luxie

aidan_walsh wrote: »

It didn't take her long to blow the "highly skilled" claim out of the water.

Not one part of that sentence made a jot of sense.

amacachi

She's really loving this story, still going with it. http://alisonoriordan.com/students-found-guilty-over-trinity-trip-vandals-alpine-resort-hotel-daubed-with-swastikas/

mikemac

Journalist going freelance starts a blog to highlight their work :eek:

Next week we'll have a thread on everyone with a linkedin account

g'em

Let's not go down this road. It won't end well.

Celebrities (and I admittedly use that term loosely) are not exempt from abuse just because they're in the public eye