I want to leave home

CityLiving A new TV series helps adult children find homes of their own. Edel Morgan reports

Most of us know a few CLOPSies and KIPPERS. Most of these Children Living Off their Parents Still, otherwise known as Kids in Parents' Pockets Eroding Retirement Savings, eventually experience the "rude awakening". This usually strikes in their mid-20s to mid-30s and is the realisation they're in danger of slipping into middle age without any serious assets or experience of having lived in the real world.

The participants of a new property series on RTÉ 2 starting on Tuesday night called I'm an Adult, Get Me Out of Here have all had the rude awakening. They have all volunteered to go on the programme so that 33-year-old presenter John McGuire, a mortgage whizzkid and property developer, could help them cut the apron strings, sort their finances and buy a property. Failing that, he aims to give them "a good shove in the right direction", according to the publicity blurb. Although filming hadn't finished at the time of writing this, not all of the participants looked set to find a property and a few were left disillusioned by the buying process.

The makers of the programme are guarding the series' contents like a state secret. My attempts to extract interesting anecdotes with which to tantalise readers were mostly in vain. After much persistence I managed to ascertain that the programme will be "humorous" and "different" and was granted a few vague examples of the predicaments of some of the participants. They were drawn from a range of occupations including nursing, the gardaí, teaching and factory work and include singletons, couples, siblings and friends buying together and a single mother.

Some were at the end of their rope living at home, like the woman from Cork who woke the whole house up recently when she forgot her key and was tired of being asked what time she was coming home. "Of course it's natural that a parent is going to be interested in what you are doing but it's stuff you shouldn't be dealing with at that age," says the series producer Jackie Slattery. A nurse in a children's hospital who features in another episode, told how after a long shift "in which she is constantly switched on, she just wanted to come home, put her tracksuit bottoms on and crash but she had to talk to mam and dad".

According to the last census, over 150,000 people between the age of 25 and 34 were living with their parents and, with property prices spiralling out of the grasp of many first-time buyers, this number is expected to be higher in the next census results.

McGuire, a newcomer to TV who runs his own mortgage brokerage, First Credit, and who bought his first house at 22, says that ironically most of the participants have jobs that were once regarded favourably by financial institutions who viewed them as solid and pensionable but which are no longer highly enough paid to guarantee a foot on the property ladder. "Some of the participants didn't know where to start to buy a place and others had been putting it off because they were having a good lifestyle at home. Then they suddenly realise they have to do something with prices going up all the time, they have to make a move. In one case we looked at a property with an asking price of €240,000 but within a week and a half, bidding had pushed it up to €292,000 and it is still going up. A brother and sister had loan approval for quite a high amount but still found it difficult to find something because they were being outbid on second-hand properties."

McGuire had to deliver the sobering news to a few that personal sacrifices were needed in order to get a mortgage. Personal debt, especially car loans, are one of the biggest obstacles to loan approval and can reduce a mortgage amount by as much as €70,000.

He says every property type is covered in the programme with some going for private housing, others affordable and at least one was advised that renting is currently their only option. "People have an immediate aversion to renting, they see it as dead money but it's the norm in other countries and at least gives you the freedom of having your own place."

McGuire had problems finding suitable second-hand properties for participants "with the increase in people holding on to their first properties for their pension when they trade up or staying put because of lack of supply".

He says he recommended two-year fixed rate mortgages in all cases and stresses the importance of getting the right financial advice from the start. "It's not a good idea to approach just one or two banks or institutions, you should shop around, because they might give different amounts. Some people get discouraged if one bank turns them down but that doesn't mean they all will."

Jackie Slattery says the participants' success finding a place rested on their willingness to compromise on the location or the property. "John had to get a little stern with them at times. Sometimes their expectations were too high. The person who had the lowest amount of money to spend got a place fairly quickly because they had the least expectations."

When I asked John McGuire how his presenting style compares to that of the high profile Corkman fronting another Independent Pictures production, Show me the Money, he replied "I don't know how to answer that . . . pretty different."