BY a curious sequence of events, I found myself at an exhibition coyly entitled Homes Abroad at the RDS in Dublin last Sunday. As a day out, it wasn't a complete wash-out. It brought back very fond memories of childhood trips to the Spring Show - I had to restrain myself from running round, gathering up as many leaflets and stickers as I could squeeze into a free plastic bag and trying to score free biros.
But, practically speaking, me going to an exhibition called Homes Abroad was nothing short of a joke. Even an exhibition entitled Homes in Ireland would have limited appeal beyond the free biros - like many people of my age, my home-buying prospects are so remote that I would need a map to even point them out.
But this place was full to bursting and these people were not here to collect stickers. Most of them looked normal, as though they wouldn't know a Golden Circle from a pack of Golden Wonder - but they scoured folders of apartments and chateaux as though they would burst if they didn't find a holiday home in Florida by lunchtime. It was the new prosperity personified and, as a marker of how much richer everybody was than me, it should have been depressing.
I like nothing better than a good rant, so I've tried to summon up a torrent of indignation at the plight of young folk like me who have been left high and dry by the property market, incapable of owning a first property let alone a "home" abroad, without first selling a limb or a grandmother.
But the outrage just wouldn't come. The thing is, I like renting. You'd never think it, to hear me mouth off to taxi-drivers, friends and colleagues. I can trot out all the statistics about property prices for firsttime buyers and shake my head with disgust at my stupidity for not signing up for a mortgage when interest rates were on a par with my pocket money.
Truth is, though, my own lack of property or prospects has never lost me a minute's sleep. Indeed, I find the idea of buying a house disturbing in the extreme. In part, this is because I like to cling to the idea that, any minute now, I'll take off and do something terribly exotic like bee-keeping in Bolivia or reforming a small banana republic.
Owning property wouldn't actually stop me performing these feats, but it's the psychological impact of agreeing that, in all probability, I will live and die here that disturbs me. Then there is the whole notion of having to actually settle on one flat in one part of town and indeed one part of the country. As someone practically reduced to tears by the decisions demanded by the average restaurant menu, the thought of plumping for just one flat or house is quite horrifying.
I just don't want to buy a house yet. I like having the option of changing postcodes, bathrooms and flatmates at a month's notice, even though I don't actually exercise that prerogative. I like the fact that I can ring the landlord if the washing machine breaks. I like knowing that if they decide to throw up a 15-storey sausage factory next door I can just move out. I like using Blue-tak on the walls. It's all part of an inability to accept responsibility, but hey, who says that's a bad thing?
Sure, there are the horror stories. We all know people who have had their rent notched up 100 per cent by landlords out to make a quick buck. Then there's the hoary problem of things not getting done; I remember well living in one flat which had no cold water - just lashings and lashings of hot water night and day. I had to get up at 5 in the morning to run the bath and flushing the toilet was a very delicate operation.
Then there are the problems people get into when they do buy property - I know two different girls who bought houses a couple of years ago, perfectly sure that their highly paid jobs in the film industry would support the hefty mortgages. It's a tad trickier on the much more modest wages gleaned in their new jobs once that particular golden goose stopped laying.
But why did they feel the need to buy property in the first place? Was it as a longterm investment or did it just seem like the right thing at the time? The Irish belief that all young people should be starting to buy their first homes is more a question of history than logic. We have a fascination with owning land - this may be an integral part of our national psyche but it doesn't necessarily show a brilliant grasp of the economics of ownership. Yet in most other European capitals, renting is the norm - students rent, young people rent, families rent, some people rent all their lives. About 60 per cent of Germans rent and, as everybody knows, they've worked out the most efficient ways of doing everything.
THE property bubble is not going to burst any time soon. According to the recent ESRI report, the economy will remain strong for the next five years at least. But instead of endlessly moaning about how shameful it is that people can't afford to buy a first home, would it not be more sensible to accept that we now live in a renting culture? Rather than demanding legislation favourable to first-time buyers, should we not be looking for safeguards for the rental sector?
At the moment, renting is understandably seen as the second-class option because there are few restrictions on landlords and weak guarantees for tenants, who are at the whim of every hot watertoting, rent-increasing landlord on the make. Surely the way forward is to accept renting as the norm, demand a lease we can love and start demanding a home abroad rather than just a few free stickers.
wingit@irish-times.ie