Ireland has the highest proportion of under occupied dwellings in the EU.

seasidedub

H3llR4iser wrote: »

Well, it's not really rocket science - in the same report, it emerges Ireland has both the highest number of "under-occupied" dwelling, and the highest percentage of people living in houses as opposed to apartments; It's not complicated to see the two things are tightly related.

As a continental European who grew up in an apartment and never ever lived in a house, however, I have to bring a slightly different angle to this - the premises of the study might be a bit too generic and skewing the result more than a bit.

I currently live alone in a two-bedroom apartment, so I am technically a perfect study case for the statistic; Even if I had a partner, we'd still be "under occupying" as there'd be a spare bedroom.

The reality is way different - I find the place TOO SMALL; The bedrooms are barely larger than the beds, there's only one small 3-doors wardrobe, the only form of "storage" is one single shelf in the hot press. I had to get a small "Billy" bookcase from IKEA to store, well, books - it's 80cm wide and to put it in the living room I had to play a game of Tetris with the rest of the furniture (one table, four chairs, one coffee table and a couch). And...this is by far the best apartment I've lived in here in Ireland.

In a nutshell, dwellings here are often designed as if the occupiers will be a couple of cartoon characters, owning one outfit they wear every single day and with no interest in life other than sleeping, watching TV and working. Houses are often no better - I've been in plenty that, while they have a large surface area in absolute terms, are divided in a labyrinthic nightmare of tiny, almost unusable rooms, each barely able to contain a double bed.

Over most continental EU, with the odd exception of the "shoebox" ones, apartments are usually designed to accommodate a family - the rooms are larger, there is thought given to storage even in rooms where you'd think you need none (big "entertainment cupboards" covering an entire wall offering a TV mount, places for books, display cases and objects of various kinds are common); as a result, you'd often have numerically less rooms, but bigger and more "up to the task" when it comes to comfortably host a family.

It does make sense that people here go for places that have more rooms than they need, just to claim the space and storage from those, while in most of Europe, the same space will usually come in a less "fragmented" format, with less rooms.

This is exactly what I'm talking about - the concept of "bedrooms " as a judgement of property over or under occupancy is rubbish.

I also lived in Continental Europe and my 2 bed flat was 110sqm. There was loads of storage built in the square hall (was opposed to the narrow ones here) and the two bedrooms were spacious enough to have built in wardrobes on 2 of the walls. A 3 bed semi in Dublin is often 90sqm, particularly ones from the 60s/70s.

I've been viewing houses as am moving and they still are not building any storage - narrow halls with nowhere for shoes/coats/bags , and if there are built in wardrobes they aren't enough to hold everything. And what about hobby stuff etc? I need my 4 bed (read: 2 normal and 2 mini) house - 2 of the upstairs rooms are just for storage!

Graces7

Wholehearted agreement here re lack of space. I am in a "demountable dwelling" designed for a single person. Small bedroom; bathroom; combined kitchen/living room also small. No storage space. I have managed a little by putting my old market trading table between the small single bed and the wall .... But cramped.

Thinking back to my last few rentals in older houses when they were made more generous . Always a room I could use for my craft work supplies... It was easier then