What puzzles me is that the valuing of a house seems so unscientific, writes DON MORGAN
I NEED TO remind myself why I’m house hunting. I spend my weekdays dragging myself around after a drive which can be anything from one hour to three, depending on whether or not some numpty has decided to park his car into the back of another and is then standing in the overtaking lane, sipping take away lattes and playing “know your insurance policy”.
Other factors add aeons onto the drive up from Carlow: over generous drivers who let in the world and his granny; some poor creature who thinks a roundabout is a landscaped garden to be admired. Meanwhile, my knuckles bursting out of my skin, my wife looks on in amusement, as the veins on the side of my head pop up like meerkats on the Discovery Channel. I hate, repeat, hate the commute to Dublin!
That’s why we’re searching for a new home, closer to work. Needs must when the economy goes belly up. Our original plan – to find work down below – collided into the back of the reality truck ahead of us.
So far, we’ve seen dozens of houses from Portobello to Killiney. We lost out once, were barely even told to sod off a second time, and there were some lucky escapes in between.
Our initial enthusiasm for the move has been replaced by weary resentment. We looked at yet another damp-ridden hole, sorry, “period residence”, asking price nearly €800,000. We felt treated with a contempt normally reserved for steerage passengers on the Titanic.
For some reason, this attitude has survived among estate agents when they find out the asking price exceeds what you’re willing to spend. What puzzles me is that the valuing of a house seems so unscientific. Another house, same architectural style and condition, a two-minute drive away, was looking at being sold for just over €500,000, reflecting the amount of work needed.
House prices resemble a parlour game made up by Franz Kafka: is the Luas or Dart within an hour’s drive? Then stick on another couple of zeros. Is the house possibly on the route of the makey-uppy proposed Metro-North? Is there a rare breed of newt in the garden? Oh, that’s at least a mill. You’ve got mortgage approval for half a mill, yes, it’s a lot, but still won’t get you diddly-squat!
Any two bit shopping centre or pseudo-amenity can allow an auctioneer to pick a price, stick it in the vendor’s head and let it embed itself in their minds better than a British cop going undercover amid a gang of ecowarriors.
Valuation methods seem to say a lot about national characteristics. The Irish are clearly Europe’s misty-eyed spoofers. The other country I know well is Germany, where my mother is from. There’s a desire for certainty and reasonable dealing that marks how they conduct business.
Germany has a lot of things which Ireland doesn’t have, infrastructure being one thing. Hamburg is comparable in size to Dublin, and happens to sit on the same line of latitude. Ironic, since there’s more latitude of straightforward business transactions. In the salubrious neighbourhood of Blankenese, a five-bed, 494sq m (5,317sq ft) family home is priced on one website at €564,000.
If you want, there are also the megabucks villas along the River Elbe, Germany’s Shrewsbury Road, but for the same money as a semi-d in Shankill, you could bump into Karl Lagerfeld in your local Lidl!
I mentioned this to someone who cut me off quickly: “Yeah, but you can’t compare, sure Dublin’s a capital!”
Dublin is a nice but not very important capital city. Second, it is the capital of a depressed, small economy, which is heavily dependent on the services industries and the state for jobs. Third, you need demand for supply to warrant higher prices. And an estate agent in Germany will at least address you as “Herr” or “Frau”.
The boom didn’t happen over there, although there was a growing trend in recent years towards home ownership. Nevertheless prices there seem to factor in more tangible value than the aspirational prices here.
I’d buy in Hamburg readily. However, I don’t want to discover that the commute from Hamburg might be shorter than the current one from my own lovely Carlow!
