Moving to Galway outskirts (advice on buying property needed)

gordont

Hoping someone can help.
We are looking to move to Galway (preferably near to Galway City) from Scotland with a view to taking early retirement and would appreciate some advice as to the best areas to look at. Schools etc not an issue but would like plenty of pubs, restaurants etc for a good social life.
We have seen some properties advertised in Bushy Park that need completion but have no idea of how to go about finding a project manager etc for that kind of task. Are these properties best avoided or could they be a real prospect of a bargain.
Any advice will be greatly appreciated so look forward to hearing from someone soon!

biko

You should probably start by getting in touch with a few accommodation agencies.
Using daft www.daft.ie/galway/houses_for_sale/ you can find agencies in the area.
Whether Bushy park is a good investment or not I cannot say. But in general all areas in Galway are good, we're blessed to not have as many problems as Limerick and Dublin.
Do consider Oughterard and Moycullen too. There are many many small nice villages around the area where houses are cheaper than Bushy park.

Welcome to Galway btw

gordont

Many thanks for the advice. We will be visiting for our first home search towards the end of March so will be starting to contact agents soon.

mrmitty

gordont wrote: »

Many thanks for the advice. We will be visiting for our first home search towards the end of March so will be starting to contact agents soon.

I don't know what agents are like in Scotland but in Ireland they tend to be less than professional and you should be wary of them.
Do a search of this forum and you'll quickly get the gist of what I'm implying.

Good
Luck with the move.

gordont

Thanks for the reply. Like anywhere else we get good and bad agents in Scotland. I have heard about some agents and their practices re selling before as we did begin to look last year in the South West (Co. Cork and Kerry)- fortunately I think we met all the good ones but I have taken your advice and searched this forum too. If anyone can recommend people we should contact that would be great.

We took a look at properties in Oughterard and Moycullen. I think Oughterard is possibly further out than we want to be from Galway itself so if anyone can recommend other places to consider that would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks again.

biko

Places close to the city worth considering in my opinion
Oranmore
Moycullen
Barna
Athenry

Really it depends on what your requirements are. If you want the amenities of the city every day then Oranmore and Barna would be good, only 10 mins drive.
Oranmore would probably have the most active social scene out of all the villages, of course nothing like the city but it has pubs and restaurants.
I would suggest making a plan and visit the villages during summer, or even go on to Google Streetview and have a look.

There are also news snippets than can be of interest like this

Chris_5339762

Keep an eye on which side of Galway you would like to be. If you're not really working, then I'd recommend the east side as you have easier access to the motorways for trips etc, but if you want to live on the Connemara side then go to the west.

Traffic in Galway is absolutely terrible at rush hour, far worse than you'd expect for a town of its size.

muppetkiller

I'd say look at Barna direction. By the sea and it has lovely little pubs and shops. A bit more expensive though.

RATM

OP as this is a big move (and your last move) I would highly recommend renting in an area for 6-12 months before you purchase. You just never know what an area is truly like until you have lived in it for a decent period and as selling houses in Ireland is quite tricky at the moment the last thing you want to do is to buy somewhere to retire and then realise a few months in that you don't like the area.

That said Galway is a great town and I'd live there myself. But like everywhere in Ireland there are bad areas, good areas and great ones. It is subjective so rather than just hopping in and hoping for the best it would be prudent to try before you buy.