About two years after securing her first home, Stacey Hawkes found herself on the other side of the housing crisis. She was someone selling, as opposed to trying to buy.
“Within the first couple of weeks we had 80 viewings, and it was sold within four weeks,” she says.
Throughout the process some of those hoping to purchase her house were contacting her directly, hoping to cement their chances, she recalls, describing it as “absolute chaos”.
After 84 bids, the three-bed house in a new estate in Blarney, Co Cork, was sold in 2023 for €425,000.
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“It’s crazy, the value of the house isn’t worth €425,000. For the material, I wouldn’t pay for that,” she says.
The house was ultimately bought by a property management company which intended to rent it out, she says, despite the couple hoping to sell to a young family like hers as she “knew the struggle”.
She had bought it in 2021 for €315,000 after a “nightmare” year-long search with her husband Kieran.
The couple had moved in with his parents in order to save for a deposit due to “extortionate rent” in Cork city, and were offered the house after another buyer fell through.
They ultimately used the Help-to-Buy scheme, which provides a refund on income tax of up to €30,000 to first-time buyers of new-build properties, though this had to be repaid as they sold the house within five years of purchasing.
Ms Hawkes, who works as an SME consultant, describes the profit made in just two years as “insane”.
“I did not expect it. My dad’s a builder, and he did not expect it.”
The 35-year-old from Gortnahoe, Co Tipperary, never planned on leaving Cork, having moved there at the age of 19, but says services are not keeping pace with new housing developments.
“We couldn’t find childcare. I tried everywhere within a 30-mile radius,” she says, adding that she was searching for childcare 18 months in advance.
“It was a brand new estate and there was a montessori across the road, and I couldn’t get the kids into it,” she says.
“It’s crazy, they’re building the houses, but the infrastructure isn’t there to keep up with it.”
The couple resorted to moving in with her parents in Gortnahoe near the end of her second pregnancy, having to change hospital and “upheave” their jobs.
Ms Hawkes and her husband subsequently became aware of a house nearby, which was owned by a man living in a nursing home. It had been vacant for several years.
“You’re almost waiting for someone to die, which is awful. That’s the scenario people are dealing with, they’re just waiting,” she says.
The house went on sale about two hours after she gave birth to her second child.
“It was the best day of my life: my child was born, and the house came up,” she says.
The couple purchased the house for €275,000 before spending an additional €150,000 to get it into a “liveable state”, using the profit made from the first sale.
“We went from a three-bed semidetached to a four-bed on an acre of land,” she says.
They availed of the €50,000 Vacant Property Refurbishment Grant scheme, which is available for homes vacant for two years or more, though this meant works had to be completed within 13 months.
The entire house had to be “gutted”, she says, with the help of her father.
“I wouldn’t have been able to do it without having a dad in construction with contacts. I’m very privileged and lucky to be in that situation, but not everybody is,” she says.
While she never wanted to leave Cork, she describes her move back to Gortnahoe as “the best decision I’ve made”.
“But I shouldn’t have had to make that decision, I should have had the option,” she says. “They’re not really creating an environment that makes it easy to stay in the country, or stay in the cities.”
Ms Hawkes recalls paying €300 in rent for her first room in a two-bed apartment in Cork city centre at the age of 19.
By 2018, before moving in with her husband’s parents to save for their first house, they were paying €1,250 per month for a two-bed apartment in Rochestown, which they shared with a friend.
“Most of my friends, grown adults with kids, have had to move in with their parents to save for houses in Cork – it’s standard now,” she says.
Single friends in their 30s, meanwhile, are borrowing significant sums from parents and grandparents to get on the property ladder, despite having upwards of €40,000 in savings.
“I have a few friends that are trying to buy now in Wicklow and Dublin, and the houses are €570,000 at a minimum for the exact same house I had in Blarney,” she says. “That’s incomprehensible. I was just lucky that I bought at the right time.”
