New home or rental?

ash1511

My wife and I work plan to live in Ireland for about another five years or so and are confused as to buy a property or rent it. Please help us on this. We are new to Ireland and are not familiar with the accommodation and property rules/issues here.
Also, we work near St. Stephen's Green so which area (junkie free and good residential) will be good for us to start our house hunt from?

Afroshack

I suppose the main question is - do you have a deposit of roughly 20-30k available to you if you are thinking of buying? The rental market is very competitive and house prices are steadily increasing which means you could sell the place for a potential profit in five years. The obvious downside is that you are stuck in an area you are not familiar with.
If you have the money for it, I'd look in ranelagh or rathmines, otherwise Dublin 3 and Dublin 8 might be suitable. If you have children, I'd consider maybe even clontarf\malahide\howth which are quite near to town via dart and are lovely, safe places. Expensive though!

ash1511

Afroshack wrote: »

I suppose the main question is - do you have a deposit of roughly 20-30k available to you if you are thinking of buying? The rental market is very competitive and house prices are steadily increasing which means you could sell the place for a potential profit in five years. The obvious downside is that you are stuck in an area you are not familiar with.
If you have the money for it, I'd look in ranelagh or rathmines, otherwise Dublin 3 and Dublin 8 might be suitable. If you have children, I'd consider maybe even clontarf\malahide\howth which are quite near to town via dart and are lovely, safe places. Expensive though!

Thanks... Do the apartments also need that much of money? Rathmines and Ranelagh are way too expensive. Dublin 8 I am not looking at 'coz of the areas like Inchicore. Any areas on the Green Line though?

Afroshack

Dundrum and sandyford are lovely spots- plenty of nice housing with shops\pubs\ transport links. Dundrum might be slightly more expensive than sandyford though, but sandyford is slightly further from town. You might check the grand canal dock ot ballsbridge area, but you'd probably only be able to afford a one bed place - they're really sought after areas close to town but also very pricey and generally expensive to live (think buying food and drink too) although commuting costs would be lower.

Afroshack

And yes, a nice 2bed apartment would easily cost around 200k on the south side so you might need up to 40k deposit.

NinjaTruncs

Afroshack wrote: »

And yes, a nice 2bed apartment would easily cost around 200k on the south side so you might need up to 40k deposit.

Assuming they are FTBs they would only need a ~20K deposit for a 200K unit.

draiochtanois

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ash1511

draiochtanois wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

Thanks... yes it will be 5 years or at the max 7. That is it. But don't you think it will be wiser to buy a property rather than pay rent for that time. Also, the transaction cost you are telling me about, goes to whom?

draiochtanois

This post has been deleted.

NinjaTruncs

ash1511 wrote: »

Thanks... yes it will be 5 years or at the max 7. That is it. But don't you think it will be wiser to buy a property rather than pay rent for that time. Also, the transaction cost you are telling me about, goes to whom?

To buy you will have stamp duty of 1%, solicitor fees + outlays on a apartment these could total about 2% and then you will probably need to put money in to the place to buy furniture and other things.

Selling you will again have solicitor fees and also estate agent fees. Add in property maintenance fees on a yearly bases these can be anywhere between 800 and 2,000.

Prices imo at also quite high so it's unlikely you will see much capital appreciation on the property.

In five years of mortgage repayments you will pay very little off of the capital.

ash1511

NinjaTruncs wrote: »

To buy you will have stamp duty of 1%, solicitor fees + outlays on a apartment these could total about 2% and then you will probably need to put money in to the place to buy furniture and other things.

Selling you will again have solicitor fees and also estate agent fees. Add in property maintenance fees on a yearly bases these can be anywhere between 800 and 2,000.

Prices imo at also quite high so it's unlikely you will see much capital appreciation on the property.

In five years of mortgage repayments you will pay very little off of the capital.

So you think renting is better than buying property as of now, even if I have to stay for 5-6 years?