It’s no secret that the price of Irish properties these days is disheartening. Many first-time buyers and potential homeowners feel that owning a house is a distant dream thanks to escalating prices across the country. But Maggie Molloy wants to change that perception and encourage people to consider rural Ireland when it comes to finding their forever home.
After leaving her native Wexford to buy a home in Tipperary, Maggie set up an Instagram account called Cheap Irish Homes, sharing the hidden gems with bargain price tags in lesser known parts of the country.
The popularity of this Instagram account soon resulted in Maggie fronting a TV series of the same name on RTE One, where each episode sees the property expert help potential buyers find their dream home without breaking the bank.
Here, Maggie tells us how her top renovation tips, the mistakes we all make when it comes to house hunting and her best advice for finding the cheapest homes in Ireland.
Read more: See inside this beautiful Connemara holiday home with floor to ceiling windows
When looking at property websites, make sure you check everywhere.
When you’re looking on Daft.ie or Myhome.ie, a lot of people just look in the residential section, put in their price points and browse. I would look in the commercial section, because you have no idea what a building has been used for in the past. You can see the strangest things crop up in the commercial section. You could have a farmhouse that used to have a post office in it. You can find something as simple as somebody putting a property into the wrong category and thousands of people just won’t see it. Look in the building site section too. Sometimes people sell a house that needs serious renovating, so they advertise it as a building site. And because it’s being sold as a site, it will be cheaper than a house so you can find real bargains there. When you buy it off the agent you don’t need to tell them that you’re not knocking the house down.
Never limit your searches on property websites.
Even though you know you need two or three bedrooms, don’t ever hone down your searches. You’re really relying on the person that put up the listing for how many bedrooms there are. If you have a house that has an upstairs in it with three bedrooms and the estate agent didn’t really think they were proper bedrooms, you could miss out on that house completely. Or maybe a potential bedroom is being used as an office, or a sitting room. Never categorise by bedrooms, leave it out and look at every house, building site and commercial property that falls into your budget.
If you have the money to replace a roof on a house, you are better off buying a house that has no roof, rather than one with a bad roof.
It makes sense if you think about it. If you have a house with a bad roof, you’re paying a premium for the fact that the house looks intact in the pictures. If you have the money to do it, I would recommend buying a house that’s had water damage, where the roof is very much compromised. You’re taking it off anyway so don’t pay an extra €70,000 for a home you’ll have to eventually end up stripping the roof off of. The first thing I look at in a home is the roof. The timbers need to be in good condition, dry and not rotting. If you have a house with a good roof you will save a massive amount of money doing it up, it also means that the inside of the house hasn’t gotten any water and you’re more than likely to have a good interior. If the woodwork is in good condition it’s a great testament to how dry the house has been over the years.
There is a growing number of homeowners willing to “rough it”.
I know people won’t want to do that and it’s not for everybody, but a lot of people would be okay with buying a house and having to paint the walls, scrub the floor and get carpet laid instead of getting a roofing company and spending €25,000 getting a new roof. If the timber is in good condition, that’s a great sign.
Less is more when it comes to renovating.
Buy a house close to the style of house you like because it’s a lot easier to turn it into the type of house you want. If you want a bungalow and it’s so far out of your reach, it’s a lot easier to get that feel by buying a cottage for example. Don’t be afraid to buy second hand – I feel there is a stigma in Ireland with this. People have a tendency to associate it with maybe not being able to afford stuff. Go on DoneDeal, eBay, Etsy or, if you have the money, go to antique or vintage shops. There is lovely stuff out there and you can save a massive amount of money renovating if you buy stuff that’s already been used.
Live in a house for at least a year before you decide to make structural changes .
Extensions are a massive strain on your budget and a lot of the time the decisions you make, you make before you even move in, and that’s a very costly mistake. Every morning I look out my front door and see the sun rising, the mist and the cows in the field across the way. I would never have that view if I put on an extension. People make these decisions too quickly and it costs them a fortune. They rush into things without foreseeing if they could live in them as they are.
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