More than 200,000 people who bought homes to live in during the boom are now mired in negative equity. Most are aged under 40 and have suffered a catastrophic loss of wealth. Many in starter homes feel trapped and can’t afford to sell or rent out their own properties.
Anna Boch (above) never planned to raise three children in her starter home. But the cramped fourth-floor apartment, off the M50 motorway in Dublin, which they bought towards the peak of the property boom, has been home for almost eight years.
It made perfect sense at the time, Boch says. She was in her early 30s, with no children, and getting married later that summer. “Everyone was saying, ‘You need to get a foot on the ladder,’ and a two-bed apartment seemed like it would do for a year, or two or three.”
That was the summer of 2006. Boch spent the next few years watching its value collapse from €285,000 to the estimated €85,000 it’s worth today.
Her first child, Aoife, arrived 18 months after they moved in, followed by Lorcan and Cormac. With a single child, the apartment was fine. But with three, the ordeal of pushing a buggy through nine sets of doors and squeezing into a lift that worked only intermittently took its toll.
The playground promised as part of the development never arrived. The public spaces outside had signs banning ball games and skateboarding.
“Maybe we were irresponsible having three children, considering everything, but they are our greatest pride and joy,” she says.
The prospect of selling up and buying another home seems more like a fantasy than a reality. Boch earns about €60,000 a year in her job managing buildings for a State agency; her husband is setting up an organic farm. As a result they have monthly childcare bills of almost €1,000.
Their only option has been to become reluctant landlords, so the family is in the process of finding tenants to move into their apartment while they relocate to a cottage in Co Wicklow, where her husband’s work is based.
Boch acknowledges that her story is hardly exceptional. Many others of her generation are trapped in homes that they have outgrown. But as she approaches her 40s, she feels that many of her age group have been ignored and left behind by the political system.
“The generation ahead of us probably have their forever homes. And now the generation behind us are going to be given first-time buyers’ incentives. For those of us who feel trapped and are still paying our mortgages, we’re at a loss as to what to do.”
