Moving to Ireland

Dave22_2

Hello everyone,
My wife and I have our hearts set on living in Ireland(West Cork area). We would appreciate any advice on which course of action we should take ie;
Should we rent out our 2 bed house in Kent and rent in Cork?
Sell our house and rent in Cork, or sell and buy a house in Ireland? Once our house is sold we would have in the region of £80,000 - £100,000 to bank or use as a deposit. Are we mad to this now?
I hope not Dave22:j

leftieM

Hi Dave
I can't really advise you on whether to sell or not - you'll sell in a falling market to buy in a falling market so it's not clear what will make you better off (you'll need a fortune teller for that!)
I would imagine that, if you are emigrating, it may be best to hedge your bets and not buy until you are confident that you have made the right decision.
Are you familiar with West Cork? There are a lot of retired English and other Europeans there so if that's you you should be able to find a community to fit in to.
Which part of Cork are you thinking of? My family is from Cork. My dad is from west of Skibbereen. It's really lovely there.

briona

Dave22 wrote: »

Hello everyone,
My wife and I have our hearts set on living in Ireland(West Cork area). We would appreciate any advice on which course of action we should take ie;
Should we rent out our 2 bed house in Kent and rent in Cork?
Sell our house and rent in Cork, or sell and buy a house in Ireland? Once our house is sold we would have in the region of £80,000 - £100,000 to bank or use as a deposit. Are we mad to this now?
I hope not Dave22:j

Hi Dave

My parents moved to Ireland in the early 80s, having fallen in love with the country on a holiday to West Cork in 1976! They were very much chasing 'The Good Life', and although they found it, things have changed dramatically since then...

Following the 'Celtic Tiger' boom of the early 90s, the 'slower' pace of life has all but disappeared, prices have shot up but salaries have not increased in line with the cost of living. I left Ireland in 2002 because after the introduction of the Euro, things had just gotten too expensive.

Needless to say property in Ireland (particularly in Cork/Dublin/Galway etc) has sky-rocketed in price in the last few years... If my mother were to sell her house now (mortgage free, 3 bed, 2 acres of land) the money she would get for it would not be enough to buy ANYTHING. Honestly, nothing at all. She lives 25 miles from Galway city, and Galway has expanded so much and become so expensive, that her village (formerly just 12 houses) which has no amenities – no shops, no post office, no pub, nothing – is now full of new build houses for the commuter market.

Obviously 80-100K will go some distance towards making property more affordable, but surely some of this would be eaten up in living expenses prior to finding jobs? To get an idea of prices, have a look at http://www.property.ie/

Also, just an aside, parts of West Cork fall within the Gaeltacht (all-Irish speaking area). If you have children, they may find themselves attending an all Irish speaking school. When coming to Ireland, children over the age of 12 are exempt from learning Irish – it is compulsary for children below that age. However, to get into University, you MUST have minimum grades in Irish, English and Maths, so being exempt from styudying it, does not do you any favours in the long run!

Phew! That's a long post!

Over and out!

Briona

Dave22_2

Ta Briona,
We have looked at many properties and fell in love with quite a few. The dilemma is which road to go down. No kids with us so your last point is not a worry. I think the cost of living problem is just as bad over here. Thanks for pointing it out though.
Dave22

gar123

hi dave

check out a great site called www.daft.ie its a property site a lot of people use it to rent houses and rooms and you can search by area and rooms prices

it might give you an idea of living expenses, im from dublin and have to say cork is beautiful but full of cork people hehe get stocke dup on ear plugs cos the cork people can get quite high pitched when wound up!