House hunting tools\tips

Wexforllion

All,

I am looking to buy first property. I've been using google, googlemaps, daft, myhome and priceregister.

I am hoping there might be some useful tools I can use to help navigate.....any ideas?

Daftdrop looks great but appears to be down for a while. Is there any other website that tracks property's that have been listed previously?

It would be useful would be to look at pictures\ad for a property thats listed on priceregister. It seems daft adds are still there for most houses sold within the last few months but not older ones. Is there any way to see adds for houses sold in last few years?. It would be useful to get an idea of selling prices for house standards and to see if they met asking price.

Any other helpful tips would be great.

Thanks

Dolbhad

MyHome.ie had a section on price changes that’s handy but only for last few months. It seems price register is all you can go at. I had asked in a previous thread about other websites to look at to get as much information about the house or area.

Highly recommend checking out the property on landdirect if it’s in land registry with the eircode to check boundaries look okay. And check local planning to see if any developments are happing that may influence your decision. I saw lovely house for sale in my area but it was dropping in price. Turns out next to the detached bungalow with loads of green spaces is planning for 2 blocks of apartments.

Buying house2020

Maybe pop in to some estate agents and tell them you are in the market for a property, they can take your details and if anything suitable comes on the market they might contact you.

But really checking daft everyday is probably the best, newspaper property sections, myhome.ie etc. On daft click the most recent tab when searching, this will throw up any recent properties.

It can be a long road. Most of it will involve time, patience and a lot of waiting for a suitable property to come up.
It's always good to look at properties to give you an idea of what you want.

Often times what you end up buying is not in any way what you had in mind when you set out on your search!

Best of luck with it!

whatever76

Set up Daft and My Home alerts for new properties for areas that you are interested and set it to slightly above your budget just so you can see whats out there above and below your budget - you get a feel for what type of house is in your limits in the current market in the different areas as well over time - this helped me when going for viewings then and it set expectations for me as well over time as you see whats out there and how the market is going !

best of luck - its a tough market out there ; very little "value" to be had currently in the main cities .

JustAThought

Go down to the council offices of the area you want to buy in and get familiar with their strategies for the area, their local 5 year 'development' and dragt development plans, their council housimg plans snd the previously approved planning permissions that are active but lying unused by developers...what might look like a lovely house overlooking a green field might soon become a planning slum, or a 24/7 supermarket with only 20 car parking spaces or a hub for the "homeless" or worse.

Interested Observer

The only real tip is to go to all the viewings, the whole lot of them, and be resilient. Assuming you don't have a mountain of cash then there's going to be disappointments but just stick with it.

JustAThought

I was nosying around a new development showhouse yesterday & asked the guy the room dimensions of the main room - he said he didnt know and the paced it out for me & said 30 foot aprox. After realising the main bedrooom didn't have space for a wardrobe I decided he couldn't be right & checked it - he was out by ten foot. . I went back & measured it & thinking I'd save him the mistake said it to him -he just shrugged as if I had said there was a hair on the floor and walked away into another room. That house cost almost 800,000.

Bring a lockable measuring tape.


Same guy explained patiently the air heating system to me - and said the house was maintained at a balmy 23*C. What he didnt say was that it could be run reliably at more than 23*C. It took an engineer who knew the system to interrupt and probe him with science before he admitted to it.

Celtic tiger lying is alive and active.

Be alert for dishonest answers snd straight up lies.

Claw Hammer

JustAThought wrote: »

I was nosying around a new development showhouse yesterday & asked the guy the room dimensions of the main room - he said he didnt know and the paced it out for me & said 30 foot aprox. After realising the main bedrooom didn't have space for a wardrobe I decided he couldn't be right & checked it - he was out by ten foot. . I went back & measured it & thinking I'd save him the mistake said it to him -he just shrugged as if I had said there was a hair on the floor and walked away into another room. That house cost almost 800,000.

Bring a lockable measuring tape.


Same guy explained patiently the air heating system to me - and said the house was maintained at a balmy 23*C. What he didnt say was that it could be run reliably at more than 23*C. It took an engineer who knew the system to interrupt and probe him with science before he admitted to it.

Celtic tiger lying is alive and active.

Be alert for dishonest answers snd straight up lies.

Who would want heat at greater than 23° C?

JustAThought

Claw Hammer wrote: »

Who would want heat at greater than 23° C?

My home is a balmy 30*c all winter long - living the dream. Im not saying its good for everyone but I love it - I came from an old and cold house with frost on the inside of the wjndows in winter and constantly papering over mould under windows. I'm in a happy warm place & I'd hate to think I was condemned to a chilly subsistance with indoor jumpers and thermals just because some sales clod was negligent with the truth.

Claw Hammer

JustAThought wrote: »

My home is a balmy 30*c all winter long - living the dream. Im not saying its good for everyone but I love it - I came from an old and cold house with frost on the inside of the wjndows in winter and constantly papering over mould under windows. I'm in a happy warm place & I'd hate to think I was condemned to a chilly subsistance with indoor jumpers and thermals just because some sales clod was negligent with the truth.

30°C is a ridiculous indoor temperature. 21°C or 22°C is adequate for any normal purpose.

JustAThought

Claw Hammer wrote: »

30°C is a ridiculous indoor temperature. 21°C or 22°C is adequate for any normal purpose.

So is gruel and water -But I aspire to more than survival.