Renters left out in the cold in Dublin

Queuing in the rain amid a large crowd of would-be renters to view an apartment that may not suit is not a fun pursuit – but more and more renters in Dublin are competing with others to secure suitable accommodation, writes BERNICE HARRISON

ON MONDAY evening, as the rain sheets down, you don’t need to peer at the house numbers to spot which is No 3 Northumberland Road. By 5.45pm there is a queue of 20 people getting very wet outside the rather grim looking modern red brick building in Ballsbridge, even though the open viewing for the three rental apartments isn’t due to start until 6pm.

The apartments they are waiting to see aren’t even cheap – there are two two-beds with a monthly rental of €1,200, while the four-bed is on offer at €2,000. So this isn’t a crowd of 20-somethings prepared to brave the miserable weather for a bargain – and the resigned look on all their faces indicates they’ve been in queues like this before.

“I recognise half the people here,” says New Yorker Caitlin Duffy, who works as a fundraiser.

“I’ve seen a lot of them over the last few weeks; finding an apartment in Dublin is so hard. There is so much competition.”

She currently lives in a one-bedroom basement flat in nearby Baggot Street, paying €1,000 per month, and she says finding a place to live two years ago was a much easier process. She wants to move to somewhere brighter and has negotiated a month-by-month arrangement with her current landlord while she’s searching. She is looking at one of the two-bed apartments.

“This waiting-in-line scenario is pretty typical – every viewing I’ve been to, there has been about 30 people,” she says, though, looking around at the growing queue, she is considering giving up and going home. “Some realtors will only make an appointment for maybe three people at a time. That’s better. That way you feel you have a chance of actually getting the apartment. With all these people here? This seems pointless.”

Her search for an apartment sounds time-consuming and frustrating, and she’s been at viewings where she suspects the successful renter has stayed behind with a wad of cash to seal the deal. “That happens all the time – I’ve cash on me now.”

But Nick Crawford, the agent for the Northumberland Road apartments who organised the Monday-night viewing, rebuts this idea. “Absolutely not, that simply does not happen, I can tell you it’s not something I would do,” he says.

“As soon as the apartments went up on the website, we started getting a reaction. When it reached 30 emails and 50 phone calls with people offering deposits for the apartments sight-unseen, I thought the best and fairest way was to do an open viewing.”

His plan for the evening is to show the apartments, take people’s references but no deposits, and decide with the landlord the following day which tenants would be “the right combination” for the building.

From the mix of hoodies and smart suits, the queue seems evenly divided between students and young workers.

Four students – Iarla Donlon, Conor McHugh, Alan Kavanagh and Peter McCourt – are also patiently waiting. A mix of UCD and Trinity students, they began househunting in June, stepping it up in August as the search became more desperate. They’ve looked at houses in Stillorgan, Mount Merrion and Clonskeagh – losing out each time to other renters – and sometimes they’re told the reason, mostly not. Two of them are commuting daily from Dundalk and another from Newbridge, as they still haven’t found anywhere to live. “We’re up against people who are willing to sign two-year leases,” says Donlon.

“We are all in our final year so we can’t do that.” They are interested in the four-bedroom apartment. “With bills, that would come in at around €560 a month each,” says Kavanagh, “It’s about what we know we’re going to have to pay.”

Two other male students, both in UCD, one from Longford, the other Mayo – and reluctant to be named – have slept on friends’ sofas since the term began. At this stage, they say, they’ll take anything. “No one wants to rent to lads, it’s as simple as that.” Both would prefer on-campus accommodation, but say there isn’t enough of it.

So many desperate people has to be good for landlords – but not all would-be tenants are thinking the same way.

“Unbelievably horrible,” is the verdict of Eoin Corry, who works in IT. “It’s like something in Russia.”

He and his friend Fergal Magee, an accountant, are looking at the four-bedroom apartment. A third friend is joining them in the flat share and ideally they want a three-bed, but thought they’d take a chance on this one. “Whoever took the photographs deserves a prize. There’s no way that this is an apartment with four double bedrooms.”

The last apartment they saw was in the Docklands, advertised as a three-bed for €2,100 per month, but it turned out to have two double bedrooms and a tiny study. They’re getting weary of discovering that what’s advertised doesn’t match up to what they find.

The lease on their current apartment was up on September 12th and they thought finding a new place to live wouldn’t be so difficult – not least because they assumed all the students would have been sorted out by now.

Since then they’ve been couch-surfing with friends or back home with their parents. “I think we’ll have to ‘up’ what we’re prepared to pay,” says Magee.

By the end of the viewing, which is extended until 8pm, 80 people have viewed the apartments and 20 have made firm on-the-spot offers – with 16 separate offers for the four-bedroom unit.

“One group of professionals offered more than the €2,000 for the four-bed but the landlord declined,” says Crawford during a follow up call on Tuesday. “He thinks the price level we advertised is fair and wants to leave it at that.”

All three units will now be rented to students. “It wouldn’t work if one of the units was let to a professional and the rest to students – that’s the thinking.”