I started house hunting at a gentle pace late last year and more frantically this spring as by then there was ample evidence that a moribund for several years Dublin housing market had sprung Lazarus-like back to life and I started to worry that I was about to be priced out of it.
House hunting is all-consuming and is definitely not rock and roll. Particularly in a market, such as the current Dublin one, where there is a dearth of supply and a flotilla of buyers. That makes it fertile ground for the money munching monster ‘a bidding war’ to graze and gobble. I lost out on several properties before I found my new home.
Last Thursday morning I moved out of the apartment, in a small town that’s about an hour’s drive from the centre of Dublin, where I have lived for almost a decade. It’s a place that never really, for a myriad of different reasons, and despite it being lovely, ever felt quite like home. I came there feeling bruised and fragile when my marriage ended. So, what took me totally by surprise on Wednesday evening, my last night in the apartment, was the overwhelming sadness I felt about leaving it. As I looked around the place, the walls denuded of pictures, the bookcases stripped bare and some of furniture huddled into one corner, I realized that actually it had very much been home: a safe haven during the years when I learnt how to paddle my own canoe. I am glad I got a chance to re-evaluate it: life is full of surprises and feelings and emotions are as unfathomable as the sea.
The apartment doesn’t feel like mine anymore although legally it still is. I would have loved a clean break but I and my fellow owners in the small apartment block have just sorted out, after years of legal correspondence, a fault in the deed of transfer of the common and areas to the management company. And now that we have control of said management company we start the task of putting it in order and building a sinking fund and until that’s done none of our apartments are likely saleable.
I am still busy out, unpacking in my new house and getting my old place ready to rent out. I love my new home. It’s possibly one of South Dublin’s smallest houses and the garden is truly postage stamp size but to me it’s ablolutely the tops and I am hugely grateful.
Just Add Attitude 
Congratulations on moving into your new home. Wishing you lots of happiness 🙂
Thank you very much Suzanne. 😉
Congratulations on the new home. Hope you post a pic, would love to see it. So the market in Ireland is very much like that here in NYC/Brooklyn, little to no homes and many buyers. Bidding wars are the worst, hate them. Best of luck in your new home, I know you will be very happy there.
Thank you so much for your good wishes and I think I will be happy in my new home. I hope to do some internal work after Christmas (nothing major) and may post some before and after pics then. I remember reading on your blog recently about how the housing market is in NYC/Brooklyn and thinking that’s so like Dublin.
Bidding wars are hard on everyone. But when I look back on the places I missed out on I am not sure that they were as right for me as the house I’ve just found. There is a huge part of me that believes (in the universe works in mysterious and often spiritual ways sense) that it was meant to be mine. I was extraordinary lucky in that I bought from honourable vendors, they received a higher offer after they accepted my bid and on the basis that they had already agreed a sale they declined it. 😉
That’s a lovely, uplifting story–I, too, believe that things that are “meant to be” will happen. When honesty and integrity are involved, that I’m even more certain that a thing was meant to be. Congratulations, and best wishes for your contentment and joy in your new home. (one of my favorite houses in my life–I’ve moved around a lot–was the very tiniest one. Such a charmer it was!)
Thank you for your good wishes for life in my new home, they are much appreciated. I am looking forward to the challenge of making it work for me. I am pleased that you had a good experience in your tiniest home.
Dear B I wish you every happiness in your new home and may it bring you all the tranquillity and joy that you so deserve. Hx
Dear H,
Thank you so very much.
B xxx
How exciting! I’m sure you will love your new house and garden.
Thanks Debra, I think I will …
Dear B., congratulations for your new home!!! House hunting is such a stressful process and it can take forever to find what you are looking for. You must be very excited. May your new home be filled with health, happiness and joy. F. Xx
Dear Francesca,
Thank you very much for your good wishes. I am excited and I am looking forward to doing a bit to my new house, nothing major …
I hope all is well with you and I look forward to reading some details of your summer in Italy on your blog soon.
Take care B xxx
I have not visited in so long (apologies) that i am going to have to go backwards before i go forwards and see if you have already posted a pic of your postage stamp of a home, it sounds delightful.. c
Hello c – there is absolutely no need to apologies and thanks for visiting.
I haven’t posted any images of the house.
with best wishes from B
Way to go, B! Congratulations on closing on new home: I know full well how long and sometimes frustrating a process it can be. But in the end all is well and the frustrations fast forgotten by the excitement of putting the finishing, personal touches to the new place you call home 🙂
And regarding leaving your previous home, detachment is always hard but, as you so nicely said it, “feelings and emotions are as unfathomable as the sea” (which, growing up in a town on the sea, is an expression that definitely resonates with me!)
Thanks Stefano for your congratulatory wishes.
I agree house hunting can be a frustrating process and you are right all the frustrations melt away once the right place appears.
I am glad you liked the that phrase. I didn’t grow up by the sea but as Dublin is a costal city nowhere is very far from it. I love waking by the seashore especially in the evening when the sun is starting to dip – I do most of my thinking then and as I walk it’s lovely to watch the ever changing seascape.
Best wishes and take care. B 😉
A small house with a postage stamp size garden; sounds heavenly.
It is heavenly and I am looking forward to putting my own stamp on it.
And maybe once you have put your stamp on it, you will send us all a post 😉
Yes, I think I will. 😉
Best wishes and it sounds like just the right time for you to start an exciting new chapter!
Thank you Meg.
Congratulations, dear B! Isn’t funny how life goes on? We move on and we make plans and the it often turns out differently and just like you say, very often for the best. I’m glad, you had the chance to revalue the years spent in the flat.
Wishing you all the happiness you can handle in your new houe ♥
Dina
Dear Dina,
Thank you so very much for your kind comment. All the happiness I can handle sounds very good to me ….
B xx
And you know I will be over to have a nose!! All happiness.
Love G. XXX
Thanks G, I am looking forward to showing you around when you are next in Dublin. The ‘grand tour’ will take all of thirty seconds!
Love B xxx
wow, what an exciting news! congratulations!!
and it seems that it’s the same sad picture in every bigger city, right? in berlin, the money-eyed monsters lurk everywhere by now. bidders try to outsmart and to trick house owners. criminal. greed is truly the dark side of humanity.
but well, I admit I envy you a teensy bit, because we can’t yet decide *where* to strike roots. we definitely want to. yet we don’t want to settle down in berlin, but tick-tack, the decision needs to be made. am going to suggest Dublin and look what Mister says 😀 We’re pretty independent, all we need is each other and a good Internet connection.
oh, I’m looking foward to before/after house makeover posts, right? 😉
Thank you very much.
It’s sad that the way markets sway to the beat of the supply and demand drum, which in turn encourages greed. But I don’t know what the alternative is. 😉
I hope that you and Mister find the *where* of your dreams to settle down in. I am biased but Dublin’s a great city. 🙂
…and I still haven’t managed to visit. dang.
*writes bucket list*
Some day … 😉
I am so delighted for you! It’s a challenge to find The Place that becomes home, and a thrill to make it so when found. I wish you every happiness in your new nest!
Thank you Kathryn for your good wishes. 😉
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