Newbie needing advice please :)

MJane

Hi guys!

I am expecting to move to Cork in a few months time. I will need a rental property for a while that is hopefully no more than an hour's commute to cork city centre and Blackrock. Should be easy enough but I have a little dog and I am looking for somewhere that accepts pets. It will probably be just me for the first few months and then my hubby and the dog will follow as we need to sell our current house. Any suggestions for good places to find a nice reasonable priced rental? I thought about asking holiday cottages if they would rent longer term but they all looked pretty booked up. Also any advice on making new friends would be fab! We have various interests but not sure where we would start. Thank you for taking the time to read this.

bingo9999

Hello - welcome to Cork!

I cant speak with any particular knowledge this is just my sense of things - a few months ago I would have said its not the easiest task to find a place, housing crisis like a lot of places, but that may have improved with covid. Have you thought of contacting Airbnb (or actual B&B) property owners to know if they were interested in a medium term let while their short term rentals have presumably dried up? I would have thought its a renters market in those terms.

In terms of areas it varies a lot and unlike some cities it not as easy as saying stick to the east/west/south etc. - most areas have good and bad housing so you might need to take each on merit. The good news is you really shouldnt have to commute for an hour in Cork at all unless you want a place in the near countryside. For Blackrock and the city centre you could look in Blackrock first of all though that would be considered relatively well heeled, and if those prices dont work the nearby Mahon is more on the other end of the scale. For both of those you could actually cycle/ walk to blackrock and the city centre (blackrock passage-west greenway) or of course bus/drive. Anything else is lucky dip as I say, set your criteria on daft.ie and see what looks good. Otherwise maybe contact real estate agents and see if they have empty lets/ sales that would take someone short term.

Best of luck with it, I would say even though youre a few months out I would dig into it now and try to have something lined up.

EDIT - On meeting friends I would suggest community interest type groups as a good starting point, there is more and more of a 'scene' in that regard as opposed to the usual pub world. Mad About Cork do interesting guerilla type public realm improvement stuff liek planting flower boxes ot litter pick ups, also a lot going on in Nano Nagle Place and St Peters centre in terms of public discussions which might steer you to people of common interest.

MJane

Thank you so much for taking the time to reply I really appreciate it!! I have been looking at a few nice rentals, we do want somewhere a bit rural, not too far though and pet friendly. I saw a few nice places on my home.ie. I tried a few b&b/cottage rental type ones but they seem to be fully booked mostly, staycations are going to be popular so guessing that's some of it. We will keep researching and truly can't wait to be there!

bingo9999

Great good to hear you have some options in mind. I live about 20 minutes outside of the city on the western side (Carrigrohane) and can say its a nice mix of basically being in the countryside but also not being far from anything you'd need, in the city or Balincollig/ Blarney. Some lovely countryside out Dripsey way, a big artificial lake behind the dam is good for water recreation. While not ideal for city centre / Blackrock it would not be terrible except for a rush hour crunch, but you may find something to the eastern or southern side too thats closer, just bear in mind the Jack Lynch tunnel/Dunkettle roundabout is the source of all congestion on the N40, and thats due a big upgrade which should make it worse in the short term.