This what you can get for €350k in rural Ireland- https://www.daft.ie/for-sale/detached-house-14-cuilmore-cove-cootehall-boyle-co-roscommon/5307423
If you and your partner are slap bang in the middle(50th percentile), earning the median-full time wage, which is at least €40k, you can live in a big, modern gaff, as long as it’s not near Dublin, Cork, Galway or Limerick city.
Your combined annual wages of €80k (40×2) should get you a maximum home loan of €280k (80×3.5).
Assuming you’ve saved a 20% deposit, you could afford a property valued at €350k, such as the one above, which is one of 634 houses (excluded apartments) on Daft that are 175sq m(a big house) or bigger priced at €350k or under.
Other highlights include this gem https://www.daft.ie/for-sale/detached-house-2-st-james-wood-stradbally-co-waterford/5316358
However, when you search for 175sq m plus houses in urban Dublin, Galway, Limerick and Cork, you get 5 results, 4 of which are badly run down (0 in Dublin).
Curious it there’s anyone on here from rural Ireland who’s not on big money but still lives in a pretty big house. Do you know many people who are in the same situation? With remote working, has anyone swapped a small house or flat in the city for a big house in the country?
PS- Home loan figure is a rough one. Know I’ve not accounted for other costs.
by OvertiredMillenial
32 comments
Think of all the time and money you have to spend on driving everywhere though.
That’s grand if you’re from a rural area or work there. But for me working in Dublin the thought of driving up and down all the time is terrible. I work from home even and the commute to another part of dublin kills me when I do bother to go in.
That house is horrendously ugly. Also, why would I want to live in a big house in the middle of nowhere when I work in Dublin and everyone I know is based there
So you can have a great place to live if you quit your job to move there?
I think the bank might have some objections to granting you a mortgage.
I think it depends. If your friend and family live there, super, it’s probably brilliant.
For me the thought of living in a town where I know no one and trekking up and down to Dublin is extremely depressing. In my experience rural Ireland is very hostile to newcomers, my family moved to a rural area when we were kids for ten years and every single day it was hammered home that you are not one of us. I wouldn’t do it again if you paid me
It’s purely a question of priorities.
I don’t want to live in a mansion more than I want to live near a city. I’m not jealous of people who live in the middle of nowhere, regardless of how nice their house is.
It’s not better, it’s just different. Depends what you value more really, space or lifestyle.
Rurally, you can get a big house with a big garden, but poor amenities and you will be driving *everywhere*.
Urban you will get a smaller house with a smaller garden, but with vastly superior amenities.
It’s supply and demand. Houses in Roscommon are cheaper than houses in Limerick / Dublin / Cork because less people want to live in Roscommon.
I’d prefer 50m2 in Dublin to 210m2 in Roscommon. You couldn’t pay me enough to live in rural Ireland again. I won’t consider moving there even if it was free
I’m from the country and I bought a small apartment in the middle of nowhere when I got WFH, moving back down from Dublin. The security of not being at the mercy of shitty landlords or weird housemates is amazing, but realism is important about living somewhere rural or in a small town – work *is* scarce, public transport just doesn’t exist, opportunities and amenities are limited, and there is a lot of truth in the stereotypes about squinting windows and backwards attitudes.
On balance it’s worth it for me, but I’d have lots of caveats about recommending it to someone else. There just isn’t as much available to you, and I do often miss the freedom of living in a city.
Just at a glance, that first house is four bed, so assuming there are two kids, those two kids will need to be driven absolutely everywhere, and back, until they’re at least 16ish, so this household would need to run at least two cars, and everything they’re going to want to do after 15ish will be in one of the cities. Are you going to drive up, down, and then back to collect them? Are you going to wait? Are they going to have to stay over somewhere?
That applies to adults too – I found it easier to meet up with friends who lived further away from me on paper back when we were all near Dublin, just because the transport was there, and reliably so.
Wages are also generally lower, sometimes a lot lower, for equivalent work, and while the cost of living *generally* is too, the cost of an electricity unit is the same in Roscommon as it is in D4, and you’ll likely need to buy more of them in Roscommon. If you’re not careful, you could wind up having to pay more to live somewhere you took a pay cut to go.
If you want to live in the middle of nowhere then it’s an ideal choice.
Most people want to live near their friends, family and where they grew up. Coupled with maybe some decent amenities.
The grass is greener approach to BS
Im one of those that ran outta dublin to the nice country house near Tullamore.
Honestly I think there is a fear in dublin about literally anywhere outside dublin and we really ought to be encouraging getting more people into the country.
Commuting is definitely a consideration but it takes less than a hour on the train to get to the city center… between the M50 traffic or even the dart its comparable. Yes it’s a bit longer but its not as shocking as people make it out to be. Obviously it doesn’t suit every industry but its really a viable option.
We recently moved to a larger house out of the way. Simply because we wanted certain things which would be astromnical in cost in the likes of Dublin.
But it took some time to get the right place, because we didnt want to give up certain things such as mains services. Having main water/sewage and having proper BB were musts. I wanted large, something nice to look at, and good BER (B1 or better). Where we ended up has all services, it has a post office, pub, spar, and beach in easy walking distance and I wouldnt change it for the world.
I live in a 5 bed in North Galway. House cost 275k a couple of years ago. It’s gone up since then in fairness but the average around here is still <350k. North Galway has historically been deeply untrendy, but I think people are copping on to it’s affordability now as there are a lot of new people like ourselves moving in. I mean, there’s a motorway straight to Dublin now up here.
I commute about 30 mins, it’s grand. Yeah I have to get into the car to get milk but the shop is only 5 mins away (it’s a service station but the service stations in the countryside tend to be pretty expansive.)
I have several supermarkets within 20 mins. The fibre broadband is amazing.
It depends where you pick obviously. The countryside is actually pretty crowded and it’s unlikely you’ll actually be up the side of a mountain using semaphore to communicate. Chances are you’ll be fairly near to a town.
I did a LOT of commuting in Dublin. I used to walk 45 mins to work each way. It wasn’t any better!
There is a perception that all house prices = Dublin. The rest of us don’t bother talking because this sub is very a) young and b) Dublin centric. So when people say they can’t afford a house they generally mean “in Dublin or environs”. Because of course there are affordable houses in Ireland. Just not in Dublin.
There are many reasons for the term location, location, location.
Property value mostly comes from its proximity to amenities that people want to live near, not size.
Furthermore, while property is (usuallly) an appreciating asset, a house is not. Buildings depreciate. When you buy in a higher density area, you’re spending more on the property, the appreciating part, than the building.
When you buy in a rural area, you get cheap property and then if you go and build an expensive large house on it, you could find you have an overall depreciating asset.
Don’t be thinking that it makes sense to spend in the country the same amount of money you would have spent in the city. It doesn’t necedsarily make financial sense.
You couldn’t pay me to live outside of a large urban centre. We deliberately chose a smaller home with access to most things via public transport over a McMansion which would mean we’d have to drive everywhere and be a taxi service for our kids well into their teens. Not to mention paying for accommodation for third level if required
– Salaries lower in rural areas
– Costs higher (e.g average spend is 2x on fuel/travel)
– Lack of access to amenities (broadband often far worse), very limited public transport and key health services (have to travel to city hospitals)
But yes, the houses are much bigger & nicer to be fair and you’ve a garden etc.
That’s still overpriced
there was a bit of a rush to do this – to move outside the city. But the corporations all reversed course on working from home so it never came to anything.
I looked at a huge house in Wicklow, on about 15 acres that i was going to buy for less than I’d get for my Dublin house. But I lost my nerve in the end; I’d be screwed if anything happened with my job.
My company gave fully remote working as an option and I immediately stopped looking at places in Dublin. I was able to afford a 4 bed detached house down here. In the area I’m from in Dublin I, at best, could afford an ex-council house that would have needed anywhere from 50-100k put into it. I have all the amenities I need down here and minus the stress of Dublin. If you can do it, go for it.
I rented in a really rural area out of necessity and luck of getting a place a few years ago. I hated it at first but then really learned to love it.
Coupled with the fact I didn’t drive it was hard but I think I just got used to the quiet and slow pace and the great nature around.
Long term it wasn’t feasible as a single person and I’m back living in a built up area and really appreciating being close to amenities (still don’t drive!) but I liked learning how to become more resourceful and overall it wasn’t so bad.
Rural and Urban areas have their positives and negatives otherwise it wouldn’t be a topic for debate so much as it is.
Im rural. A wreck of a house beside me was on for €75000 but sold for €175000.
People I know, with cash, are being outbid by tens of thousands.
That house will get half a million easily.
The whole county is being effected.
When I returned to office after covid in Dublin having gone to home county for about a year people just refused to accept that I act had a good time at home near beaches, no traffic, pints with the lads, long walks etc.
Some people who grew up in cities are just blind to life outside them or institutionalized 🤣 you can have a life outside urban areas.
Funny part was most of those people didnt have anything different to me as in they weren’t out clubbing, weren’t doing 1 tiny thing different to me in there home life yet because I was outside the city I must have been ‘bored your rocker’ ‘miserable with nothing to do’ ‘depressed being away from it all’s 🤷🏻♂️🤷🏻♂️🤷🏻♂️
We have a semi rural 3000sqft detached house on a couple of acres that would be in a similar ball park. Our kids would rather we lived in a tent on a housing estate than where we are.
People seem to have a city mindset but you can probably have an equal or better standard of living elsewhere on lower wages because you save more wages not buying and living in Dublin. Modern 3 bed houses with gardens are Ber B rated in bigger Limerick commuter towns for 145k. I’m preapproved and our combined earnings are less than 50k a year. We have a car, lucky to have found nice jobs within the town so zero commute, but if we wanted to go full climb the career route it’s a 40mim commute to limerick city.
There’s nothing that we want that we have to drive routinely out of town for, can do extraneous shopping online or go into the city but its cheaper online. Towns have a great community I’m only here 4 years and I’ve made some great friends in my 30s through various social clubs. There’s great big parks and green spaces in walking distance. Our kids can have primary and secondary with smaller class sizes so they aren’t consistently overlooked and left to flounder. When older they can commute to UL if they want and save money not renting in the city. Same for jobs but I’ll encourage them to go off to Oz for a bit while young
Have fun living in rural Ireland when you can’t drive. Or when you have kids and they have very little in the way of independence and have to be given lifts to everything.
There’s a reason why rural houses are cheaper. Fewer people want to live there. And if houses in Dublin were 350k, that house would be 100k.
Oh ya I love it.
Dont know the names of my new neighbours just about know what the look like. Its great!
Hardly any traffic.
Spectacular views of Lough Derg and the Shannon.
Grow my own food mostly.
Super fast broadband because one of my neighbours is a TD.
Brother lives next door. Family home witin walking distance.
Its all gravy.
One downside would be going out for a night. Taxi is expensive.
Also will your kids have friends nearby? Ferrying them to activities and school will take longer.
Raised right beside Dublin, couldn’t afford it, moved to Mullingar. Not a huge house, but it’s still a decent 3 bed in a lovely safe estate. No car either and still manage to get around. The town has everything and I also have never come across any of the infamous traveller disputes. Much prefer being down here WFH compared with having to go to Dublin which is a cesspool these days.
Amazing that the streetview is taken from a boat on the lake.
Yeah but then you have to live in Roscommon.