HOW DO PEOPLE manage to buy a home in Ireland?

We all know the numbers: the rising prices and the rising rents and the deposits that need to begged, borrowed or saved. And if it seems like the numbers just don’t compute, that’s because, for almost an entire generation, they don’t.

Just a third of under-40s in Ireland own their own home (as compared with almost 80% of over-40s, a notably huge intergenerational gap by international standards).

House prices increases each year vastly outstrip wage inflation, while rents cripple anyone trying to save. You’re looking at €2,000 for a two-bed rental in Dublin.

First-time buyers scrambling to keep up with price growth are now being approved for mortgages of €319,000 on average, a record high. That’s seven times a median salary of about €45,000.

And a mortgage alone won’t buy you a house: a minimum deposit of 10% is needed. That €319,000 mortgage would have to be backed up with a deposit of over €35,000. That’s, oh, seven years of café avocado toast every single day, give or take. How does anyone spending €1,000 each month on rent have that kind of disposable income to spend or save?

Make it make sense, you say. Well, we asked readers who have bought a home in the past 10 years to do just that.

Our thanks to the many people who got in touch to share their stories – we’ve read them all, and tried to reflect the spectrum of experiences here. Here’s what you told us.

There’s savings and there’s ‘savings’

Home ownership in Ireland is not meritocratic, or somehow unlocked by hard graft alone.

Many people’s path to home ownership seems rather to have been opened up by a windfall lump sum they could put towards their deposit – and towards bidding against other would-be buyers. This didn’t apply to everyone by any means, but certainly to quite a lot of people.

When people talk about their ‘savings’, they’re often rolling in this windfall money too.

It was striking how often bereavement featured in our readers’ stories of buying a home: many people told us they had received an inheritance that made all the difference. Inheritances mentioned included sums of €20,000, €60,000 and €75,000. Redundancy lump sums also featured.

Even readers who benefited from a bequest or gift had to save hard. One man bought a home in Dublin 7 for €430,000 two years ago, putting €100,000 down as a deposit – €20,000 of which was an inheritance from his deceased grandmother, and €80,000 savings from 10 years work in IT.

Living in a house share with “relatively low rent”, he had been saving €750 most months.

The bank – and boxroom – of mam and dad

It didn’t always involve a bequest either: the generosity of an older generation – who already own their own homes – featured strongly in the stories we received.

Many people benefited from help from their family or partners’ family, often in the form of a gift or loan towards their deposit to the tune of tens of thousands of euro.

Sometimes, the amount gifted dwarfed the amount people were able to save themselves.

One reader saved €30,000 over six years while renting in a “cramped” shared house in Cork (with reasonable rent as the landlord did not increase it).

He moved job three times in his 20s to increase his salary (with a view to qualifying for a bigger mortgage) and was “strict” with himself when it came to savings, travelling abroad only three times over that period and going on a night out only once a month – although he didn’t mind these privations too much.

He received a gift of €75,000 from his parents towards his purchase of a house in Cork city for €269,000, going sale agreed in 2020 when he was 30.

Several readers spent time living in their parents’ homes, or on their parents’ property in a cabin or granny flat, as they saved for a home of their own.

Living at home as an adult can take a toll, socially and emotionally.

A software engineer said he was able to save €1,500 per month, increasing as his salary increased. He paid little rent while living at home, and coming from a working class background he avoided lifestyle creep, keeping his discretionary spending down. At first he was saving to emigrate, but home ownership was soon within reach and as a high earner with a significant deposit he had no problem getting a mortgage.

He bought his own house in the area of Dublin he wanted for €430,000 at the age of 26.

Sounds good?

“Living at home was a complete nightmare for me. It was constantly, needlessly stressful all the time. I struggled with having friends and relationships and spent a lot of time as a shut-in,” he said.

“I felt perpetually 17. I remember when Covid began I was like, ‘well this is my normal anyway’ because I was inside all the time anyway. For most of those years I was horribly depressed.”

While other people his age were renting with friends and going to parties and festivals and on holidays – “really living” – he felt he was “just existing”. He feels his introverted personality and depression worsened his isolation.

He said he knows many older people would give anything to be able to own their own home, but says he’s not sure he would recommend doing what he did.

“It was disastrous for my mental health and I don’t really know if it’s possible to recover. You only get to live your 20s once and I feel like I sold mine.

“I do spend a lot of time thinking about what I had to go through to be in this position: a third-level education and career in one of the most lucrative industries, years living at home saving away, selling my twenties – all for the basic human right of independence and peace.

It’s not right, and it’s getting worse and I don’t think anything will be done. I’m not sure being able to purchase a home as a single person, even with everything I had to do, will even be possible in five years.”

Another reader who spent six years living at home with her parents in her 30s, while she saved as much as posible to buy a place of her own, said it took it took a toll on both her and them, and she craved her independence.

“It was hard. Wardrobes and the attic crammed with stuff. The dynamic is all off, you are so glad of the cheap rent but you are still a child, back at home.

“I didn’t date people. I became really embarrassed by my situation. Still at home with
the parents in your 30s. Friends would talk and comment on it, I avoided chat about
it, I didn’t want people asking me. I actively avoided people too.

“I was really embarrassed, but I knew I was like so many others in Ireland.”

After six years in the family home in south Dublin, now she is happily living in her own duplex in Kildare.

It took a while but I got there.

“Now that I am in and settled, I am delighted. The place is fab, with all MY furniture (lol).”

Another reader, who bought a new-build, three-bedroom house in north Co Dublin on her own in 2018, at the age of 35, said she had to acknowledge the financial support she received from her family. She had moved home for three years to help out after one of her parents died and did not have to pay rent or bills during this time. She was earning €57,000 working in healthcare.

Living at home, she tried to strike a balance between having social outlets (“a necessity for me and my mental health”) and cutting back on holidays, nights out and meals out to ensure she was saving. Her family gave her a gift of €30,000 and she received €15,000 from the Help to Buy scheme.

“The fact that I got to live rent and bill-free for three years, and receiving a financial gift, gave me a significant foot up in getting on to the property ladder,” the reader said.

I don’t know if I would have ever achieved buying by myself without it and I will forever be grateful for my family.

“I was also extremely fortunate with the timing of my purchase. Two houses of the same style sold last year in my estate for €450,000. There is absolutely no way on this earth that I could compete and my heart goes out to anyone trying to buy, especially those who are buying by themselves.”

How do people save?

Several readers indicated they had had to go to pretty extreme lengths to save enough to afford their own home – this particularly applied when it came to readers who were buying a house without financial assistance from family, or any other windfall.

One reader in her 40s, who bought a second-hand home in Dublin city centre on her own last year using only her own savings and a mortgage, had saved while renting for 20 years. Her landlord required her to leave the property for weeks at a time and stay with friends while he put it on Airbnb for holiday periods such as Easter.

She put up with this for the sake of cheap rent but it was very stressful. She said she feels lucky now to have her own place – but also feels “sad and angry” that getting to this point took so long and was so hard.

Some readers found they saved money during the pandemic, which helped them with pulling together their deposit, while some took advantage of remote working to seek out cheaper rent at that time.

One reader who bought a house in Leitrim last year with her partner without help from family said they saved for six years while renting in Dublin and Leitrim – saving particularly intensely for four of those years.

“We did not have to make huge sacrifices, we just made smart choices on daily basis. For example I am the only one of all my female friends who never ever got my nails or eyebrows done, never bought clothes anywhere other than Penneys, chose holidays based on the best deals, etc.”

Another reader, who bought a three-bed house in Dundrum, Dublin 14 with his fiancé without financial help from family or any other windfall said having a “stable, secure rental situation” had helped.

He saved on his own for two years and with her for four years, cutting out all expensive hobbies and travel, with takeaways and nights out a rare treat. He took a course in the evenings to get a higher paid job and increase the mortgage he could qualify for.

Struggling to save while renting (content warning: slugs)

One reader, who bought a house in Dublin with her partner in 2023, lived in a cabin in his parents’ garden to save for their purchase.

“We were renting before that but we just couldn’t save fast enough on our below average salaries. I got no assistance of any sort from my family,” she said.

The walls of the cabin were thin and rotting, and rain would pour down on the inside.

“Slugs came in every day. We would wake up being able to see our breath, it was that cold, but we were determined to get a house,” she recalled.

The couple sacrificed holidays, events, “basically everything we could”, and she was miserable.

The house they bought is second-hand and was not well maintained, so they are dealing with that now. She commutes 90 minutes each way to work.

It has been such a slog and it is upsetting the insane levels we had to go to just to get a bog standard house.

“A colleague asked me during the process what areas I was looking at and I just told him: whatever we could afford. You don’t have the luxury of choice at our level.”

A reader who bought her home in 2020 said she and her partner faced serious difficulty in trying to save a deposit while renting.

The couple moved from Dublin to a shared rental with a friend in Co Kildare because they could no longer afford rent in the capital – but they still had to sell their motorbikes and borrow from her parents (paid back over three years) to afford the deposit on a house in Co Offaly.

“We could not have bought the house without their help,” she said.

“It is very stressful renting and trying to save. Renters need more assistance when buying. The Help to Buy scheme should be for secondhand houses too and not just new builds,” she said.

The Programme for Government agreed this week is vague in relation to what will happen next for Help to Buy, stating only that it will be “retained and revised”, despite Fine Gael running on an election pledge to increase the relief to €40,000. Housing market analysts say the scheme contributes to house price inflation.

Beyond the Pale

For a number of people, particularly from Dublin, buying a home necessitated moving far away from where they originally wanted to live – the reader who sold her motorbike to buy in Co Offaly among them.

“We would have loved to buy closer to Dublin to be closer to elderly relatives but the only place we could afford to buy was in Co Offaly,” she said.

(On a happier note, two years of saving later, she and her partner both managed to buy back their motorbikes.)

The reader mentioned above who bought last year in Co Leitrim said that while she and her partner had initially planned to buy in Dublin – and had bid on houses for over a year – they found they “weren’t able to compete”, in particular with cash buyers. With both of them now working remotely, moving to Leitrim, where she’s from, made sense.

“We had no financial stress looking in Leitrim. The only challenge was availability of houses – it was just a waiting game, waiting for something suitable to come up for sale. We’ve ended up with a house we love, and a mortgage we can afford.”

Another reader, a nurse from Dublin, who bought last year with her partner who works in cybersecurity, said they would both have loved to stay in the capital. But even with gifts from both their parents and savings accumulated by living with his father for two years, it wasn’t possible.

Like many first-time buyers, buying new made financial sense to this couple.

“Due to the amount of mortgage approval we got we knew we could not afford to get into any bidding wars for a second-hand house, or to have the money to make any renovations needed,” she said.

The Help to Buy grant meant they also had extra money for their deposit. However, buying new also meant that Dublin was no longer an option.

“We have a beautiful home, but the commute is a killer,” she said.

“We are very grateful to be on the property ladder and hope to move home to Dublin some day.”

Just as the pandemic was a game changer for some people when it came to saving, it also unlocked buying in less expensive areas for a number of people who got in touch with us.

One reader from Dublin, an administrator in the public service, moved to Belfast during the pandemic when remote working allowed it, using an inheritance, savings and the proceeds from the sale of a house she owned in Donegal (albeit she sold while still in negative equity), to buy a four-bed house.

“I recommend to anyone struggling to get on the property ladder in Dublin to consider Belfast,” this reader said, adding that Dundalk seemed just as expensive as Dublin now.

“You can always commute to Dublin a few days a week and do hybrid working. The trains are running every hour in the morning now and in 2hrs 15mins you can be in Dublin.”

It was also during the pandemic that another reader, from Dublin and working in hospitals while renting, saw a beautiful house in Leitrim online and posted it on her Facebook page “jokingly asking if anyone wanted to loan me a deposit”.

“A friend messaged me and asked if I wanted a loan of €20,000. At first I thought he was joking but he had come into an inheritance so had the money in the bank until he and his wife knew what they wanted to do with it for sure,” she explained.

“I decided to look slightly closer to home and found a three-bed semi-detached house in an estate in Westmeath for €195,000, now worth €295,000-€305,000.”

“He loaned me the cash, which he had to declare as a gift, I bought the house and moved in January 2021!”

She used a credit union loan to pay her friend back, and has since paid that off and moved her job to a hospital in the midlands.

“There has to be a better way. My mortgage is the same amount every month as I was paying for a room in a shared house,” she said.

Mortgages

Most people indicated they had no problem getting a mortgage. Several readers said they wanted to highlight the benefits of going to a broker to help get the best deal and make the process of dealing with the banks easier.

One postdoctoral researcher who had returned to Ireland with her partner – also a researcher – after five years abroad, had problems with the banks.

Their unusual work contracts meant that despite having combined income of over €100,000, the maximum mortgage they were offered was €235,000. By contrast, 3.5-4 times gross income is standard.

“This left us with few options. We looked in areas we could afford, not areas we wanted to live in. We were outbid on several properties before we found one. We had planned on moving after a few years but in the current climate, this may not be feasible, without doubling or tripling our mortgage payments,” the reader said.

Several readers who bought their own homes in the past few years indicated they are in high earning professions, and many had moved job in the years before they bought, often a number of times, for a higher salary so they increase the amount they could borrow.

As is obvious from the stories above, many readers felt grateful to now own their own home – but frustrated at what they had to get through to make that possible, and equally frustrated on behalf of anyone trying to buy a house now.

There was an overwhelming feeling of pessimism about the direction the housing market is going in.

Above all, readers who bought during or before the pandemic shared the view that they were lucky to buy when they did, even though prices seemed crazily high at the time: so many said the growth in property prices even since means they would not able to afford the same houses today.

One reader who bought a house with her partner in Kerry in 2021 with a €75,000 inheritance and a €45,000 credit union mortgage said: “It’s not a big home, it’s not a fancy home, but it’s ours”.

She wanted to take out as small a mortgage as possible for a turnkey house, and they will be mortgage free this year.

“I grew up in a disadvantaged area in a council house in Limerick City and never dreamed I would own my own home. I have siblings living at home because they can’t afford to rent in Limerick and another who got a home through Peter McVerry Trust last year.

“I hope it eases. I’d love to see all my siblings in their own homes some day and wouldn’t want my daughter to struggle like so many are right now.”