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THE COST OF owning and running a house in Ireland each year has jumped by more than €1,000 since 2018, according to new research from AA Ireland.
The average homeowner in Ireland is now spending over €17,000 on owning and maintaining their house. That equates to about 43% of the current average national wage, according to figures released by AA Ireland today.
Every year, the AA analyses expenses related to owning and running a home, such as mortgage costs, property tax, heating and other bills.
The increase in the cost of running a home comes following a rise in the national average price of a second-hand home in Ireland. Values increased from €243,000 during the third quarter of 2018 to €269,000 in the third quarter of this year.
Those who took out a 90% mortgage this year are likely to pay out €11,000 per annum – an increase of 9.45% on last year.
Speaking about the findings, Conor Faughnan, AA Director of Consumer Affairs, said: “While we’re still significantly off the peaks seen during the Celtic Tiger, house prices have continued to surge in the past 12 months representing a major issue for both those looking to acquire their first home and those trying to meet their monthly mortgage repayments.
In fact, the increase in monthly mortgage repayments almost single-handedly accounts for the over €1,000 increase in home running costs that we have seen this year.
“The good news is that many of the other increases seen in home running costs are offset by drops in the cost of electricity and broadband/tv charges, meaning if you were fortunate enough to purchase your home when prices were lower, your financial situation is largely unchanged.”
Negative equity
While the AA bases its calculations on the expenses of a new buyer, there is also the so-called negative equity generation – homeowners who bought their house at the peak of the boom.
The AA gives figures for that group too, assuming the house was bought in 2007. That cohort currently pays €4,653.48 more per year on their mortgage repayments than people who purchased their homes in the third quarter of this year.
The second single most expensive bill for homeowners is in relation to maintenance, repair and contingency funds.
The AA estimates that the average homeowner is likely to spend or set aside €1,246.35 each year to keep up with wear and tear. This figure equates to almost 7% of the overall estimated cost of owning and running a home.
Taking average usage figures, the AA estimates that homeowners will spend €815.72 (+3.79%) heating their three or four-bedroom home this year and a further €999.79 (-5.54%) on electricity.
Other costs included in the study were: home insurance (building and contents combined), calculated at about €570.95; telephone and broadband bills at €420; household appliances at €554.86; household cleaning products at €340.94; and domestic refuse collection at €300.72.
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You can’t generalise and say that at every Irish person in Australia was pushed there as a result how bad Ireland is.
Any Irish in Australia I know went because they could. An opportunity to travel, sun, something different for a few years. Many pull factors.
@Ciaran: Whinge Fein has a certain narrative that can’t be deviated from. Irish exiles, forced to emigrate because of, ahem, full employment at home. What a load of horse-semtex!
@Ciaran: was about to say this. Good post.
@Ciaran: There was a major push when Joan Bruton was in government, she had letters sent out to unemployed people suggesting that they emigrate!
@Ciaran: If you’re in that age bracket of people who were graduating and looking for work in the depths of the recession recovery around 2011-2015 then you’ll likely know many of your peers who had to leave Ireland during that time and know that it certainly wasn’t for sun travel.
3 people I grew up with on the same street all left for Australia during that time, all from different houses. None of them wanted to but it was either sharing a dilapidated flat in Dublin with 6 other people costing most of their salary or having some respect for themselves and moving abroad. Employment around Munster was miserable at the time so commuting from home was never an option.
Whether it was teachers, nurses, those who had to move abroad or those forced to rent in Dublin under awful conditions we were a generation of young people completely thrown under the bus by the FG/LAB government at the time to shield others and it won’t ever be forgotten.
@John Mulligan: Full employment!! Would you stop.. badly paid gig economy jobs!! Couldn’t bring up a family on it.. better off on social welfare in alot of cases. Like you I’m from Dublin but live in the same town as you. That is where similarities stop because I’m all right but I care about the less well off and what them to have a bigger slice of the cake!! You keep knocking SF but never address the real issues that your leaders have failed this country on. John go back to your unfunny sketches on a particular local website.
@Ciaran: true, still if you have dreams or ambitions outside of middle managing a department in an insurance company, you sorta need to go and live in a real economy, as opposed to the made up one we live in.
@John Mulligan: I think you will find that some of the folk out there have been there because of the 2008 crash here and had no option other than emigrate and Australia offered them the best option. Some of these have looked at the option of returning home but have been put off by things like the housing crisis, poor pay for similar jobs and so on. Mary Lou is being quite broad with her comment but so are you
@John Mulligan: Tru the years it’s been emigration of the youth that has kept this lot I. Government
@Ciaran: well written comment
@Rochelle: what on earth are you talking about. This country has gone through the whole “Celtic tiger” era and people still left. Jobs where you named your price and got it but folk still went. SF trying to spin old rhetoric that the poor Irish downtrodden were forced abroad but will come home to work for peanuts, patriotism and the love of the land. Give me strength.
@2thFairy: grqduated 2012 . Applied for over 200 positions. Criteria for most was 2 years experience . Many a secretary said go abroad to get 2 years experience and then your cv wont be thrown straight in the bin. Rochelle hit the nail on the head. Again though a certain cohort werent affected in this way that had jobs. They cant seem to understand the undercurrent of resentemnet for fffg and labour amongst young people . It is there
@Derek Lyster: nothing stopping them coming back.
Except the prospect of bring ruled from Belfast by the IRA army Council
@Ciaran:
So you don’t even know one person who left because the recession left them unable to find work or earn a living here?
That’s not a misrepresentation at all is it…
@Tom Kelly: he still got more likes than you
@John Mulligan: that and a crippled health system and a housing crisis neither of which were created by sf
@Rochelle: I went to Australia in the days when a man was a man and recession was a recession, 1989, population dropping by a net 40,000 a year, “last one out turn the lights off”? and still I did it voluntarilly
@Ciaran:
This is the truth of the vast majority of Irish people in Aus
@Gert McNulty: I’m absolutely amazed at some of the replies here, it’s as if there’s a collective denial among some that the recession happened at all.
@Rochelle: We know it we lived through more than one of them. Irtish people have been emigrating for centuries.
Trying to lay the blame for party reasons is a bit much.
I know loads of friends and family who went to Australia and none of them want to come back.
Why, easy it is the lifestyle they have. Not about the money it is the way the live. The standard of life is better. I visited and saw exactly what they meant and was kicking myself I never went when I was young enough to do it. I know of one couple who came back, sold up the beautiful house and businesses to come “home” too late they realised that Australia was their home. Cost them an immense amount of money to “go home”. Maybe after a couple of years you could come back but stay there much longer and set down real roots and you belong there, Get weepy on Paddy’s day etc but While we were celebrating New Year with freezing cold rain and wind. My Australian friends were seeing the New Year in on the beach. I know who had the better night. We al got wet but only I was freezing. They were drinking Australian wine for little or nothing and pubs here were charging entrance fees.
Did the Trinity educated socialist fly economy class?
@Bri Lyons: So, you think Trinners should only be for toffs?
@Bri Lyons: it’s fine, the bucket collection in one irish pub buys a lot of first-class travel for the SF elite.
Does she not understand that the majority of Irish people in Australia are there by choice, enjoying the lifestyle and a few years’ travel? Nobody ‘let them down,’ Ireland gave them the education and skills to take them anywhere rhey want.
@A Well Known Comical Stereotype AKA PRGuy:
Trinners for Shinners
@John Mulligan: Most of them had to move as there was no jobs in Ireland after the last crash.
@Bri Lyons: do you think the spoofers at FG and the guys who bankrupted the country at FF fly economy? I think you will find they have their snouts well in the trough but hey, let us keep the corrupt top echelons who do their utmost to show nothing but contempt for the vast majority of the nation in power.
@David Corrigan: that does not fit his blinkered narrative!
@McQuillan Shane: Our John can’t cope with the fact that FG/FF are on the way out. We are here for him though. I like John. He is funny.
@Bri Lyons: Did the University of Cork educated muppet fly economy class to Japan?
@John Mulligan: She’s obviously addressing millennials who had to leave during the recession years and not folks in their 70′s who went there for retirement.
The idea that Irish people in the last decade were mostly emigrating for the craic is very easily debunked by comparing emigration figures from the recession years with either before or after.
For example 50,900 Irish nationals emigrated in 2013, down to 22,800 in 2021. An abnormal number of young people were emigrating during the recession years, more than double the normal. It’s not difficult to understand the reason why.
@mark daly: probably not , but they don’t profess to be socialists or to lie and tell everyone their Party TDS are on the national average wage when they are not.
@Bri Lyons: Donkey
@Bri Lyons: Over 90k of SF TDs salarys are redirected to the party. So yes they are actually on the national industrial wage. Don’t believe everything FFFGGP say. (I put them all together because there is no difference lol)
@John Mulligan:
The majority went by choice? According to who?
Did all the lads down the mines, or those working on the big civil engineering projects and in all the professional and management jobs all left by choice?
Hard to believe the number of people in these comments proclaiming this as the truth. Pure nonsense
@David Corrigan: ah that old cliched line died six years ago. Many of the ones wh were in Australia then are back here now and there’s a younger wave out there. And it wasn’t lack of a job or opportunity that took them there
@David Corrigan: I have a lot of friends who all had good jobs and all moved for the lifestyle. Oh and they got better jobs too. irish qualifications are highly though of in OZ
Some Irish people actually elected to relocate away from their mammy, what’s she on about?
@Eamonn O’Hanrahan: Most are there as Ireland could not provide them with a job and a decent way of life. For some people that’s hard to take but it’s true. You bust a gut in Ireland in a good job and you are still left with nothing.
@Eamonn O’Hanrahan: and many did not, what are you on about?
@McQuillan Shane: no, I don’t accept that. Anyone who choose Australia over England was in search of sun and adventure. Life is tough, buying a house has always been a challenge, I’d say that’s true over there too. Her message seems misleading to me, they should be called out for it.
@Eamonn O’Hanrahan: Nonsensical argument.
@Eamonn O’Hanrahan: her message is misleading? – Or perhaps you are misleading her message. Read the article again. She acknowledged some are there by choice, while other were not. The important part of her message was for all to come home to build a better Ireland.
@Eamonn O’Hanrahan: well that’s just crap.
@Cobh Rebel Tour Mccarthy: her nessage is ps bs. Nobody goes to oz because there are a lack of jobs here, lol.
@Cobh Rebel Tour Mccarthy: and those she refers to work in the high paid sectors and she wants them to come home etc etc yet her party want introduce a wealth tax on high earners
@David Corrigan:
Not True at all
Typical that comments are closed on the “Debunked” story of the lightening strike picture (which needed no debunking for most people) and that of Pat Kenny and the Covid story, yet comments open on a story about Sinn Fein in Australia, censoring certain topics.
@Ciarán O’ Donoghue: the thought police are out in action today. I was censored too.
@Ciarán O’ Donoghue: I think the #weneedyou line attached to the story says it all….
@Ciarán O’ Donoghue: Leo’s social media outfit will be out in their droves with the anti SF rhetoric nice and early on these positive sf stories
@Brian Burns: what’s positive about focusing on returning home and places of origin? It’s fecking 2022 for gods sake.
@alan: not positive I suppose but not the usual hatchet piece the Irish media can serve up…fantastic country went there myself due to a recession brought on by ff bankrupting the country
@alan: because some of us in the diaspora would potentially like to come home but certain regulations make it very difficult for us to come home with wives and family. They make you jump through so many hoops it is unreal.
@Brian Burns: the world has moved on and people,can choose where they want their ‘home’ to be. I agree that some people have left here because they had no choice. I sympathise with them . But others are availing of the opportunities offered in a more mobile world and the best of luck to them.
@alan: Comments open on the BAI complaint on Oh Holy Night.
@Ciarán O’ Donoghue: I read it. now there a reason for leaving your ‘place of origin’
@Brian Burns: did you come back under the governance of the same party(s)?
@GrumpyAulFella: came back under the governance of fg,no different than last mob confidence and supply has confirmed they are cheeks of the same bum
Same old narrative from Mary Poo the whole forced abroad story is always pedalled out. Majority of people who traveled to Aus were employed in Ireland and left for life experience, traveling opportunities and a change of scenery. Most return to similar Jobs they left with lifelong friends made. I can’t think of anyone who returned home with bags of cash made that they can sit back and relax.
@IronMan2020: You should try moving to a real country and live there for a while. It might open your eyes.
@David Corrigan: why would anybody leave this land. Refuse to work and this great state provides. There can’t be a country in the world that provides so well for people not willing to work.
@IronMan2020: Mary Poo? Why is it only the good move away leaving children trapped in the body of adults behind!
@IronMan2020:
Yet another foolish claim that one of the biggest emigrations of the last 20 years was by choice..
@IronMan2020: yes many were employed when they left, but many left as they were not working in the field they were qualified in. It was nearly 18 months after I left college before I got a graduate position, I wasn’t unemployed for 18 months, but I was in the verge of leaving for Australia so I could start my career.
@IronMan2020: Dream on anybody who thinks living on a pension is great or on any of the social welfare payments is dreaming.
They are all under the poverty line and well away from the living wage.
Does it really matter whether she did or not, considering our heads of government fly business class while lecturing us on climate change and how we must change our lives, give up our cars, why one member of government suggested SUV’s should be banned in Dublin, there is no end to hypocrisy, those who do telling those who don’t what the rules are and obey them. No need to pick Mary Lou’s bones , she was not in government…..yet.
Why the whinging about her flying business?
She’s working, right?
Anyone ever try to travel large distances and immediately go to work? The ability to sleep when you’re expected to get straight to it really isn’t a huge thing to expect.
@Tricia G ☘️: M Martin is in Japan. Did he travel in the Planes luggage hold?
@Tricia G ☘️: the fuss is because Pearse tried to slag Varadakar off over a dinner that he had to thank party colleagues implying that it was extravagant in these severe cost of living times. Meanwhile Pearse’s own party leader is jetting down under to €3,000 a table fund raiser events, sipping champers and not staying in Travelodge. She then comes home and holds banners stating that she Can’t Afford to Live at protests in Dublin while her party did not attend the same events in Belfast organised by the same Cost of Living coalition as her party are jointly responsible for the cost of living crisis in Belfast. When you add all of this up it’s incredible hypocrisy and needs to be called out at every turn.
God help SF if they ever get to sit on the Hot seat and get to run this country! All the promise they have made , everyone gets a house, property tax Gon, the dole increased, and no hospital waiting list, just to list but a few. I’d even vote for them,, oh sorry I’m a middle income taxpayer,
Just back from oz …and i can tell you that the irish over there dont feel robbed…amazing place
So she’s a mind reader now…
@Paul Shepherd: Are they all not mind readers? Our current leader told us we don’t want a general election. They are all very good with the auld tea leaves.
They cant come home Mary Lou… There’s no place for them to live..
I know lots of people who moved to Australia. They moved for the experience, for travel, a sense of adventure etc. but many moved because of the high tax, high regulation system we have here that will greatly increase if Sinn Fein come into power. It won’t be just the young people leaving them but people in their middle ages as they try to survive under a Sinn Fein lead government.
@Gerry Kennedy: soooo… We just keep the same system of FF/FG we’ve been in for 100 years? Great idea.
What an arrogant comment. No Mary Lou, they are all just waiting for you to come along and entice them back to your brave new world.
Quite amusing to see the ‘Send a tip to the author’ piece at the end of this. There is no author. Someone copied/pasted a script. No analysis. No critique. No opinion. But perhaps it would have been fairer to unsuspecting readers to have included a warning – There now follows a (patronising) party political broadcast on behalf of SF!
Dunno, takes years to reintegrate, no housing, no healthcare, no transport to maybe commute, limited jobs market, a hard sell, small population is pretty welcoming if you’re leaving some crowded international city, but really there’s no angles left here, they’ve all been closed, ironically by us lol!
@thesaltyurchin: Ireland will never be Australia. We don’t have a whole vast empty continent with minerals and gold under our feet. We don’t do too badly for a sodden piece of rock off of Europe. The things that are a problem like housing, healthcare etc that can be fixed or could be better are the way they are because of bad policy – mainly copied from the British. SF will just double down on the same broken policies making the problem worse
@Damon16:
Copied from the British?!
Can you not just accept that the vast majority of inept policies are guaranteed Irish?
@Damon16: They can literally do what the want at this point, it would be criminal if FFFG were to get in again, the lack of ideas in the last 50 years is shocking, agreed we can fix our infrastructures but but implementations should have been started decades ago. We will be waiting and paying for services for another half century for sure. I would disagree that we mainly copied the British, from what I can tell they did a far better job running the place, also blaming them is part of the problem. But, that said I would agree that the place isn’t that bad really, if your rich enough, etc. But as a people we very much don’t understand the value of worth.
@White Chapel: The systems are all based on the UL systems. Our laws and almost everything else are either similar or based on the UK systems.
She’s grabbing there now.
Talking thru h#le
Most went with a group or to a group just so they could be with or live with their friends,tiny minority make a decision on their own,most just want to be with their friends partying all the time with no responsibilities
That’s grand sure where are they gonna live? Are SF going to free up all those empty properties lying idle or will returning emigrants just pack up and move off to somewhere they can put an affordable roof over their heads?
@Golden Steph: Good question in relation to what SF will do. I’m sure we will find out. At least, at the next election we will know what FF/FG did about it. Kinda makes up one’s mind on which box to tick.
@Tony Harris: at just 36% in the polls it’s hard to see how SF could govern. Even with the crazies on the left, they’d need the pro-Putin’ites in Europe to come back and to bribe a lot of independents. A coalition of chaos I guess it could be called. David up the Ra Cullinane as Min for Health, Mick Wallace in Foreign Affairs, Ming Flanagan as Minister for Finance and Clare Daly as Minister for Soc Welfare. A game of Russian roulette so to speak.
Champagne Mary has changed her tune. One minute she’s holding banners saying We Can’t Afford to live and claiming that there are no homes, now she’s telling all Irish people to leave their plush lifestyles in Aus and to come back. Which is it Mary? Should they fly back first class like yourself, sipping champers and nibbling on prawn canapes? A united Ireland? Who has that on their agenda when we are still coming out of a pandemic, battling a global cost of living crisis and trying to build more houses than ever before in the history of the state. Get your priorities right Mary and come out of the 60s, nobody cares about your united Ireland fantasy that will spark a terrorist tennis match in our country.
Most went as a group decision so they could all live together and party in a different place,very few people decided on their own to go
No problem Mary Lou. Most people living and working in the US, Australia or Middle East to return home would have to slash their salary in half, pay double the tax, pay massive amounts for rent/mortgage in proportion to income. Access to healthcare in a timely manner… public transport issues… the list goes on.
A lot to fix to make it attractive again.
@damian: Pearse can make all of this happen with one flick of his magic wand. Free everything for everyone.
To think 36% of our electorate are this niave and gullible is truly amazing.
Ah here! give the future Taoiseach a break, she is saying things here that haven’t been heard from a politician since the foundation of the state. It’s no wonder SF are so far ahead in the Polls.The last mention of emigration by a politician was urging our young people to leave the country, because of lack of jobs and housing. She undoubtedly has her ear to the ground and her finger on the pulse
@Pat Maher: you can say anything when you’ve been a century in opposition and only sitting on just 36% in the polls with no politician willing to come anywhere near you to share government. Money for nothing.
Go boil your head….
Oh come on. Come home to what? 2,000 Euro a month rent, no options for affordable housing and a health care service with hundreds of thousands? Mass emigration will be taking place once again as children going to college and leaving university have very few options for housing. Sure jobs are available but where will they live? Being forced to live with your parents at age 25 (or older!) is not reasonable if you want to be fully independent and live your own life.
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