Cheap European Homes (RTÉ One, Sunday, 6.30pm) could just as easily have been called Cheap Houses in Rural Portugal, given how much attention is devoted to our fellow Atlantic-facing EU member. Having twice visited the country in season one and made a return visit in year two, this spin-off of Cheap Irish Homes is once again a Lusophile’s dream as the latest run of episodes finds presenter Maggie Molloy en route to the large town of Tomar in the hunt for a bargain.
Molloy is blessed with the natural cheer that is probably obligatory if you are going to spend your working days truffle-hunting around Ireland and the Continent for affordable property. But while she is great, the show loses marks for bringing back comedian Kevin McGahern, whose banter jars with his co-host’s plain-spoken style.
As McGahern rambles around Tomar, Molloy helps Co Clare board-game enthusiast and accountant Róisín Cunningham and her father, Bobby, check out local properties. These include several fixer-uppers and what I suspect is a haunted house standing on a crossroads (with a second haunted house also available in a two-for-one deal).
Portugal has its own accommodation headaches and the big cities are as unaffordable as anywhere in Ireland. Out in the sticks, bargains are easier to come by. What’s really shocking, however, is the relative affordability of labour - for instance, you can re-roof an entire house for just €6,000, which is what Oasis will probably be charging for a seat the next time they play Croke Park.
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Property TV has had a tricky time of it as the housing crisis leaves so many Irish people between the rock of rising rents and the hard place of unaffordable mortgages. When so many people are scraping to afford a duplex in Gorey, it feels almost cruel to show us one celebrity architect or another tend to a wealthy family in some well-to-do part of Dublin or Cork as they agonise over just how big they want their kitchen windows. At their worst, these shows feel as if they are rubbing our noses in it.
But Molloy is the perfect antidote to posho minimalists in hard hats providing a snapshot of how the other half lives. She is down-to-earth and seems to appreciate that she is helping people meet a basic need in their life.
As roving reporter, McGahern could have done with talking to some actual locals rather than a Welsh woman who has moved back recently (having spent much of her childhood in Portugal) and the series more generally needs to go further afield than Portugal/France/Spain. But it is nonetheless a rare property show that doesn’t feel maddeningly out of touch, and for that, it should be applauded.
