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AT A TIME when house prices in Ireland are almost 20% higher than they were at the peak of the Celtic Tiger, purchasing a home has arguably never been more difficult.
We asked you, our readers, for your stories about buying or trying to buy a home in Ireland and in response, we received dozens of replies from people who felt frustrated, ripped off and in some cases taken advantage of by the professionals they encountered during the process.
Many who shared their stories said they felt the estate agents they had dealt with were taking advantage of people desperate to get on the property ladder.
Some people who reached out are still on the hunt for their home, and many reported feeling despondent, with some giving up and choosing to continue renting for the foreseeable future.
The overriding theme in responses was a frustration with the lack of transparency in the home-buying process, particularly the process of bidding on secondhand homes.
For the new build market, readers told us about issues with changes being made to plans and estate agents giving incorrect or false information to potential buyers. Common to these responses again was a frustration over the lack of transparency in the process.
One reader, Carl, who is a first-time buyer in his forties and in the process of buying a home with his wife, told us about the stress of trying to secure a new build because of the lack of information that is given to buyers.
“We have met agents at viewings who open the door to tell you that you need to pay the €5k booking deposit before they’ll even really talk to you…Even now, we have signed contracts and are waiting for utilities in order to complete, but we have no idea of even an approximate time frame – we’re told anytime in the next 24 months.
“We’re investing so much time, money and energy into the property, but we are not even given basic information, such as when we might be able to plan to move.
“This seems poor practice to me, especially as we are renting in Dublin in the meantime and throwing a lot of money away while we wait. It is disrespectful to the buyers,” Carl wrote.
Readers also got in touch with stories related to the sky-high asking prices attached to some properties and the inflated prices attached to derelict homes.
One reader told us that they have had several instances where estate agents have told them that the higher asking price of vacant or derelict properties is due to the availability of government grants.
Many people also got in touch with stories of difficulties attached to being in a chain.
A lot of these readers, who had a house to sell before they could purchase a new one, said estate agents favoured cash or first-time buyers.
A number of people in chains said they felt like they were just used as part of a bidding war to drive up the price.
“It’s a complete scam,” one reader in Wicklow wrote.
“When myself and my husband were looking to buy a house, the estate agent told us there was a bid in at €400,000. We found out later that this was a cash buyer and the seller had accepted the offer,” the reader wrote.
Despite this, the reader was encouraged by the estate agent to put in a higher offer. The cash buyer then increased their offer to €410,000, which the seller agreed to sell for.
“It was just a ruse to sell the house for more money,” the reader said.
“At another house viewing, which we wanted to put a bid on, I was told by the estate agent my offer wouldn’t be considered as there were two cash buyers bidding against each other. The agent didn’t want to deal with mortgage applicants…I really feel for people in the market now,” the reader told us.
Another reader, whose house has been sale agreed for eleven months, but who has not yet managed to have an offer accepted on a new house, told us: “Our hopes are shattered, and we can’t trust the estate agents. We are now in a position where all properties are going up, and we might have to ask our buyers for a better offer, or re-market our property, which never looks good to see a house go back up for sale.
“We basically get lied to and used, and never seem to get anywhere with a purchase as we are dependent on selling our house first, contract signed, before any consideration on offers.”
Another reader, Gavin, told us how he has previously bought new and second-hand properties, but faced major issues purchasing his most recent home last year. This was a new-build property with a value of €800k.
Gavin was not alone in telling us how he was advised to sell his current home and enter the rental market before buying a new home, a risk he was not willing to take.
“First and foremost, the number of developers that refuse to engage with anyone in a sales chain was shocking, particularly considering the value of the home. Some flat out refused to deal with us,” he said.
He also highlighted issues with the developer and the slow pace that work was carried out by the bank and solicitor.
“It’s like dealing with the worst IT service desk you’ve ever encountered.
“Our solicitor was ok, but clearly once engaged, they have no sense of urgency,” he said.
On the developer, he said they placed a clause that he was advised was “nearly illegal” in the contract.
“They wanted to charge €200 per day for every day you fail to close beyond the agreed closing date, effectively penalising the buyer for any delay.”
Many of the readers who reached out to us shared their frustration about the complete lack of transparency when bidding on second-hand homes.
“The buying system lacks any transparency. You don’t even know if there is a real person up against you,” one Dublin-based reader in her fifties wrote.
A report from property selling platform MyHome.ie earlier this year found that on average homes are being sold for 9% above the asking price, with one in seven selling for 20% above.
Many readers told us that they felt the estate agents they dealt with were “chancing their arm” to get the highest possible price and the easiest possible sale.
A number of readers told us that they learned from their estate agent after securing the home that they had overbid on the property.
Andrew, 33, in Dublin, told us how he secured his home for 14% above the asking price.
“To cap it all, the agent — in their typical tactless manner — let slip that my offer was several thousand above the next best bid, basically admitting they’d taken me to the cleaners.
“Adding insult to injury, the agent later phoned to request a glowing written review. I never want to see them again,” he said.
Another reader, Kevin, was in a selling chain around four years ago. He and his partner initially bid €10k over asking but were told by the estate agent that the seller would only take €20k over asking.
Kevin and his partner agreed and secured the home. Eventually, he became friendly with the person they bought the house from.
“He remarked to me one day that we overpaid for the house, and he would have taken the asking price because he wasn’t interested in making loads of money from the house. He just wanted a quick sale as he had a deposit put down on another house.
“I told him that I paid that amount because the estate agent told me that he wouldn’t accept our first offer.
“Turns out the estate agent never went to him with our first offer.
“Still makes me angry to be treated like that,” Kevin said.
Another reader, who wished to remain anonymous, told us that she and her partner were bidding on a house they really wanted that was being sold through a well-known estate agent.
Bidding went €60k over the asking price, but the estate agent would not tell them if they were the highest bidder.
The reader phoned the agent and spoke to a person in the office who told her there was no update available.
“I got my sister to ring them five minutes later and she was told they went sale agreed.
“I rang back straight away and asked the same girl about what she said to my sister, she hung up on me. The agent eventually rang back and said that our bid wasn’t high enough. Absolute disgrace,” the reader said.
Rob, in Dublin, told us how he bought his home seven years ago at the age of 30.
“We had a really good rapport with our estate agent but we didn’t trust her even a little bit,” he wrote.
“She was from one of the big agencies. After a lengthy bidding war that drove the cost of the property up from the initial asking of €350k up to €395k we were told that a final bid of €5,000 [more] would secure us the property.
“We took a full 48 hours to agree and once we’d bid €400k, she relisted the property on Daft because hitting that threshold moved it into a new bracket of searches and drew the attention of potential new bidders.
“She advertised a new viewing and we got in touch to say we were no longer interested if this was how she was going to conduct business. I’m not sure if we ended up calling her bluff but I don’t think the viewing went ahead and we ended up going sale agreed without having to place a new bid.
“We were under our max budget, but I’m still convinced she was chancing her arm and when we threatened to pull out, we spooked her.”
Another reader told us how an estate agent in West Cork didn’t put their offer to the seller so that they could have a faster sale from a cash bidder.
“The estate agent told us that our higher offer was not being accepted and the vendor was taking a lower offer from a cash buyer. I then used the land registry to find out the name of the seller, then Googled her name and address.
“Luckily, she was self-employed and I found her email address. I emailed her and asked her if she was aware that we made a higher offer than the one she accepted.
“She didn’t reply but the estate agent emailed us the very next morning saying that the seller has accepted our offer into the bidding chain.
“Arsehole of an estate agent hadn’t made her aware of our offer because he wanted a faster sale from the cash bidder. We bought the house and love it!”
The reader added: “Sometimes it pays being a cheeky fecker.”
Another reader, William, who has been searching for a home in Munster, wrote to say he has given up his search and is happy renting for now.
William’s main frustration with the property market in Ireland, like many other readers, is the bidding process, which he dubbed “completely archaic”.
He described driving to viewings and taking time out of work to make an offer on the “sticker price” of the home, only to be outbid within 24 hours.
“This method of buying a house is completely archaic, based on centuries-old British land laws, and is considered highly repugnant in other countries,” William wrote, highlighting how in some countries, bidding on “an essential resource like residential real estate is heavily frowned upon.”
William noted that in Germany, for example, most properties are offered for sale at a fixed price.
He concluded: “This is not worth my time at all and for that reason I’ve decided to just continue renting for now as at least I have some transparency with what I’m paying and what I am getting for my money.”
Other readers got in touch with stories of dodgy practices from estate agents.
Jill Magan told us she and her partner had been trying for four years to find a home with their “tiny cash budget”.
On two properties, they went sale agreed. In one instance, the surveyor found that the septic tank was in the field behind the house and on land not included in the sale.
“When we told the agent we would not proceed with the sale and why, we got ‘it’s grand, you can easily make a new one’. There was zero space behind the house and a small front garden next to the street. You could give the benefit of the doubt here, but the property was back up on Daft two days later (we reported it),” Jill said.
On another property they went sale agreed on the agent and the solicitor worked on the same street as each other.
The solicitor told Jill and her partner that if they went ahead with the purchase they would have to sign a document that said he advised against it due to an extensive list of problems with the contract.
“Crossed the street to tell the agent we were withdrawing our offer and he also did a ‘sure don’t worry about all that, I’ll have a word with [solicitor]’,” Jill said.
On another property they viewed, the couple were told by the local postman that there was a major problem with subsidence and dampness in the development. The agent claimed to know nothing about it.
Jill and her partner have since managed to buy a property in Offaly.
Overall, readers struck a sombre note when describing their experiences of the property market in Ireland.
One reader, who saw the builder of their new build home removing items from the property “presumably to pass a snag in another house” signed off with some advice for anyone buying their first home:
“Don’t be in a rush to get the keys. The seller is just as eager as you… All issues must be resolved before you sign, and make them believe that you are quite happy to walk away at any stage.”
Some quotes have been edited for clarity and brevity.
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The problem is definitely the estate agents. The majority of them are very untrustworthy.
@John Doe: you’re not a property owner Rian.
@John Doe: Getting cash for those blue and red Manopoly buildings in your parents box room doesn’t count John.
@ian: parasitical s(um.
@ian: Estate agents act for the seller to get the most for a property. They are professional negotiators who do this every day. It’s funny how house buyers embarking on the biggest single transaction of their lives are surprised that they can’t beat a professional, dispassionate negotiator. If you want better results, engage an estate agent to buy for you. A fee of 1% is usually less than one or two bids.
@John Doe: While you are certainly entitled to seek profit, buyers are equally entitled to transparent, fair negotiations that allow them to purchase homes at reasonable prices — not prices artificially inflated to the detriment of our entire economy. The practice of aggressively overpricing properties to line personal pockets directly undermines a fundamental human need: access to shelter.
It is astonishing that you would invoke entitlement when it is, in fact, families striving for a basic right — a home — who are forced to navigate not only unchecked greed but also outdated regulations that continue to protect such exploitative practices
You, my greedy “businessman” are crazy, NOT the other way around.
It’s almost like the developers and politicians are in cahoots to maximise profits!
@common sense: this was written by ChatGPT. You can tell my the intermittent bold text. That’s shockin’.
As is with everything in Ireland. No legal controls, no transparency, no governing bodies with teeth, no clear and concise systems, no consequences tor misrepresentation…. Ireland is a beautiful country of natural resources And full of people who are out to get ahead by stepping on the necks of the few who try to be law abiding, morally correct and altruistic.
New (pre fabricated) 3 bedroom house in 60km radius of Dublin…. €495500 minimum… get the fook.
If you’re under 30, get òuťta here. No one could blame you.
We bought a second-hand home.
Not because we had no other choice, but because we had sense.
The new builds were way out beyond the last bus stop, stuck between cow fields and broken promises. The ones we liked closer to town were delayed year after year.
So we found a house that was already standing. Five years old. Good bones. The garden had been done right. The boiler coughed and wheezed, and the kitchen layout was a mess for us but we’ve since fixed that.
It was not perfect. It was not new.
But it was ours.
We saved for it. We compromised. We made it a home with our own hands and our own money.
And that is the part people seem to have forgotten these days.
First-time buyers now seem to think they should skip the hard yards. They want granite worktops, underfloor heating, designer tiles, ready and waiting the day they get the keys.
They do not want to climb the ladder. They want a lift straight to the top floor.
Well, life is not a show house.
You do not get handed the dream. You build it, slow and steady, one dodgy boiler and cracked tile at a time.
That first step onto the ladder feels rough. It teaches you something. It teaches you pride.
Stop waiting for a ready-made life.
Start the way the rest of us did with what you can afford, where you can live, and enough fight in your belly to make it better.
@Rafa C: lovely story except for the fact that bidding wars are driving second hand houses that usually need work into the range of new build prices. Even commuter towns that used to attract people because houses were more affordable are expensive now. The whole market is celtic tiger 2 now and it looks like it hasn’t peaked yet. The government’s housing policy is working very well for those who have property…
Disgraceful carry on and the government allows this fraud of young folk.
@John Doe: Unfortunately, it sometimes is what would amount to fraud in any other transaction.
Example below.
gethousesurvey.ie/post/what-constitutes-a-bedroom
Also, thanks to our great government and courts, absolutely no consequence for mistaking the size or condition of a property
Looking at houses here for sale in Scotland..good god !..Ireland are so expensive!! Fabulous houses for half the price even when you convert the euro…
@Michele Milne: I think they’ve a sealed bid system in Scotland? What are the wages like?
@Michele Milne: we are considerably wealthier and have a higher priority to owning our home over just having housing
@brian o’leary: Depends, off shore oil workers in North Sea, particularly the divers, get upwards of 2k a day.
@brian o’leary: crap!
@Tom L: many offshore oil workers don’t actually live there, a former colleague’s husband worked a few weeks on, 12 hour shifts daily for two or three weeks at a time and then the same number of weeks off which he spent at home here in Ireland.
Same carryon back in 2007, we had to pay 5k cask on the side to estate agent we never knew who it was really for. Also, prices are not 20% higher now than celtic tiger peak, as we had to pay 30% stamp duty back then.
@Allo Allo: bs. The highest rate of stamp duty was 9%, it was never 30%. Why lie?
@JoeJoe Kilbride: yes looks like you are correct, we paid close to 30k stamp duty on a property less than 400k, no lie just a mistake, but 30k back then was a real stinger trying to get on the ladder.
I think some people have missed the point on who an estate agent works for. They work for the seller and not the buyer, their job is to get the highest price for a property for the seller. It’s human nature of course everyone wants to get a bargain when buying but want as much money when selling!!
@Mary Kelly: nobody is talking about expecting a bargain, they want to be treated honestly and professionally
People who buy houses as investments are leeches
Estate agents are ruining this country, with no proper regulation or restrictions. They’ve absolutely rigged the market
@Con Corkery: That’s simply untrue. Estate agents are heavily regulated by the PSRA.
I went sale agreed on a property in my village. Got a surveyor in. He found major issues affecting the structure of the house and smaller issues like boundary walls. He advised me run for the hills and make the reason known to the estate agent – that this needs fixing. I pulled out of sale and showed the agent the report and asked him to tell the owner (in case they didn’t know). Turns out the second highest bidder was offered the property immediately . As it’s a small village I introduced myself to the new owner – the agent never disclosed the structural issues. That buyer got a cheap surveyor done and it wasn’t spotted. When he asked the EA, the EA said no legal obligation to disclose the information. Also my bid was 326k, I was told second bidder bid 325k but it was only 320k
I’m not surprised by any of this.
The house buying process needs total reform.
These ‘expensive’ houses should be no problem to buy on the so called average wage I hear from government. When in reality the average wage is minimum or not a lot above it if youre lucky pure bull####. The fact is the more enter the country the greater the demand and marvellous times ahead for pensions down the line as birth rate is dropping significantly and will cause serious problems. But not to worry I suppose government have that all thought out then again once they’re looked after sod everyone else in the long run.
I have dual citizenship (Ireland and US) and have purchased and owned multiple properies in the US. But, I have described buying a residential property in Ireland as equivalent to buying a used car off a sleazy car lot in the US. We’ve failed at completing a property buy in Ireland three times in the past decade even though twice we made full asking price offers for cash. The prices listed are meaningless. The agents reek of hussle and dodge. All during this adventure we got older and it simply no longer made any sense to buy yet another property. We’re now renting in Galway.
How do you know an estate agent is lying to you?
Their lips are moving.
If you are selling a house, of course you would prefer a fully cash funded or mortgage approved buyer over someone in a chain when so many things can go wrong. One sale falls through and the chain breaks…
Readers lol
Not the estate agent’s fault you can’t negotiate. This is capitalism, if you’re willing to pay, they’re willing and to charge.
@Ethan Gannon: given that the estate agents aren’t giving them clear and concise information to negotiate, and sometimes /lying/, how is anyone an informed consumer making rational choices here?
The system wants us to buy smaller properties at higher prices as it benefits law makers, bankers developers and government for tax take! We are selling out our young people future as government point to international cities like London and Paris where only rich people live!! I’m not right or left just centre – but must say I think we all need to go a little left these days to balance things out!!! I miss the states people who used to have the our interests to heart
I’m selling a house to my daughter.
The solicitors are part-time employees ( women working part-time). Between part-time and gone on holidays, it takes a month to answer each question, generated one after the other
Every week we think it is completed. It will be a year in July.
This is what happens when a basic human necessity is treated like a casino , over decades . Governments with a laissez-faire approach, which has ultimately failed …
while some dream of riches, others dare to dream at all .
estate agents work for the seller. that’s the main thing to remember.
I believe the government should control the estate agents to bring in a fixed price on property, also on new housing estates, a fixed price for the first stage of houses.
have your say