A DAD'S LIFE:Afflicted by the Irish need to 'own', we want our own gaff, writes ADAM BROPHY
WE ARE in the midst of a house purchase. We will no longer flirt with west Cork – we like it, we’ll put a ring on it. The kids are delighted.
For two years they have witnessed me pick up The Irish Timeson a Thursday and flick through the dwindling property porn. The elder would sidle up and check out what I was checking out, snatching the paper away in disgust when she realised I was tracking Dublin prices. "We're not going back," she'd snarl, "all my friends are here."
But still, as long as you rent you have the wandering possibility. We can always head back up the road, in fact, with the missus’s business it would make far more sense to be back up the road. We could be anywhere in the country, and pretty much anywhere else in the country would be closer to the bulk of her work. It doesn’t matter, all the travelling is worth it . . . we think.
Ireland is a country with a property fetish, and we’ve been stuck in the lurid property swirl for nearly three years now, ever since we decided to sell our old place.
We’ve been extremely fortunate – we sold in a crumbling market and held off on buying as the facade of any rhyme or reason to prices disintegrated around us. As a result, we can buy more now than we could have done a while back, if a bank, all of whom I’m pretty sure we own at this stage, will lend us a few bob.
They may pretend to be fuelling the economy, but the reality is that unleashing the purse strings is proving more difficult than seducing an al-Qaeda handmaiden.
While it seems still a little stupid to be buying as prices continue to freefall, we – afflicted by the Irish need to “own”– want our own gaff. Want something permanent. Want not to be beholden to anyone, our living quarters dependent on the vagaries of other people’s lives.
And in the two years renting we’ve discovered vulnerability. We started out with an infestation of rats, to which our letting agent suggested we “man up”. That we, as city folk, should become used to the country reality of living with vermin. I resisted the urge to throttle him, and instead called in Rentokil and billed him.
Within weeks of our moving in to our rented home, we were told we would have to allow the occasional viewing by potential buyers. We felt the high price being asked would attract very few viewers. We renegotiated a reduced rent, allowed weekly viewings, and nobody showed. The price lowered during the summer and finally people began to pay attention.
Now, the house we rent has been sold and there is an impetus for us to move, and to buy ourselves. But we have already been exposed plenty to the property sales and letting industry.
To avoid dealing with these people again, more than anything else, we are determined to own our own house, be in control of our own lives. I don’t like being pushed though, and the niggle that maybe we’re not quite ready is serving as a handbrake in forcing our deal through.
All the reasons to buy are there: we have found the place we want to live, we can afford the repayments, the kids are settled and content. I just feel a monstrous disgust at the property industry and have no inclination to line the pockets of those involved further.
That industry was the nose-cone of Ireland Inc as it crashed to the ground. And even now, as we search through the debris of the smash, they insist on peddling us lies about the re-emergence of the economy, how prices haven’t fallen in particular areas, how a decrepit damp shack will make a sparkling family home, as if we are too stupid to have any inkling of reality as it has adjusted around us.
I want a house that I can get wrinkly in, that my girls can roam in, that can be ours. I just wish I could attain that without any dealings with the very people whose greed and negligence has put the country in a handcart.