“Buying a home is so emotive. It’s one of the most important things you’ll ever do in your life.”
As a previous first time buyer and the best friend of those buying a home in Ireland, Ciarán Mulqueen is an authority when it comes to purchasing a home.
Ciarán gained prominence by creating the hugely successful property social media account, CrazyHousePrices, before hosting a podcast with the same name. He is also the author of ‘How to Buy a Home in Ireland’, a property book that answers all the questions and queries home buyers in Ireland may have from the beginning to the end of their home purchasing journey.
He poured his own experiences into the book, going through the ups and downs of his journey to homeownership in Ireland, from the initial decision to buy with his wife in 2018 to finally securing their home in The Liberties. As such, Ciarán is rightly seen as one of the leading voices representing home buyers in Ireland and continues to serve his growing audience with excellent advice.
With that in mind, we’ve enlisted Ciarán’s expert advice as well as Daft.ie, Ireland’s number one property website, to create a step by step guide to get you through the process of buying a home.
There are many reasons for wanting to purchase a home but whatever your reason, Ciarán believes it’s “impossible” to try and time buying a home perfectly with the market.
“I think it’s wise to buy a home if you find one,” says Ciarán. “It’s mad to wait and try and time the market.”
Whilst it may be difficult to time the market, that shouldn’t stop you from doing you research. Ciarán’s page is a great place to learn more about the property market, from entry-level details to niche facts.
Another way you can learn market information is the Daft.ie House Price Report, which is compiled by Ronan Lyons, Professor of Economics at Trinity College Dublin. It looks at the data behind housing, breaking the information down into an easily digestible format. This is a free report that has been running for years and contains only the most vital information about housing in Ireland.
Lastly, to really prepare yourself before entering the market, you can use a handy tool from Daft.ie. If you have a location in mind where you want to buy, you can get a valuation of properties in that area to get a feel for house prices and if it’s affordable for you. This will really help to get you ready for the journey ahead, because after all, buying a home is the biggest purchase any of us can make, and it’s right that we treat it as such.
As Daft is Ireland’s number one property website with the largest number of properties for sale in Ireland, it’s the best place to find your dream home. It’s likely the home you’re looking for in your preferred location is on the site.
“There are so few homes available. If something is there, if there’s a home for sale, it’s going to be on Daft.ie. They have pretty much all of the listings, it has everything,” said Ciarán.
Alongside the homes available on the site, Daft has a number of tools designed to make searching for homes easier. These tools have been developed to ease the stress on buyers and are constantly monitored and updated to streamline and simplify your journey.
Firstly, the saved search alert tool will send you a notification for any property that matches your ideal criteria. The tool is searching 24/7 for your dream home, and notifies you when it finds it.
“When we were trying to buy our home, that [saved search alert tool] is what we did,” said Ciarán. “I think I had 5 or 6 different searches saved and then I had notifications turned on for it. You can have it set up on your desktop or phone and you’ll get pinged straight away as soon as something goes up. That can be really beneficial as you can be the first to email about it basically.”
The quicker you are emailing the better, especially if it’s a new build as they tend to go within minutes,” Ciarán added.
Setting up a saved search alert like Ciarán did gives you the best chance of finding a home. For a tool that teaches you more about the location of a property, you can use Daft’s Local Area feature.
Newly-launched in a partnership with Glenveagh, the Local Area tool makes it as easy as possible for users to get key information while viewing a property on Daft.ie without the need to search elsewhere. The information available includes distance to local primary and secondary schools and public transport infrastructure in the area, including distance from the door of the property to the nearest public transport stop.
With your dream home picked out, you can start placing offers on the property. Ciarán advises “there is no one size fits all” when it comes to placing offers on a home you love.
It’s a good idea to develop a good relationship with estate agents and let them know your situation,” said Ciarán.
“I call it a buyer’s CV. Show them that you are organised, that you have fully underwritten mortgage approval, which is very important. Show them you have your solicitor organised, your surveyor organised, your mortgage protection ready to go. You want to showcase to the agent that you’re a sure thing, you won’t mess them around and that the sale is going to go through,” he added.
Offers by Daft is another way of ensuring a smooth buying process. It allows buyers to place offers on a property directly through Daft.ie.
I’m a big fan of Offers by Daft. I think it’s a win-win for everyone,” said Ciarán.
“For the buyer, it offers transparency, you can see straight away when an offer has come in, you get an email alert and you see how much it’s for and you can be confident that that’s a genuine offer. For the estate agent, it frees up hours in their day as they don’t have to go around ringing every buyer on the house. I just think it’s a no-brainer,” he added.
As Ciarán said, you can track all offers on a property at any time and from any device. Other offers are all certified and registered with Daft, reassuring you that you’re bidding against other real buyers. Lastly, it cuts out needless back and forth with agents, allowing you to get on with your day, placing an offer on the property if the price rises.
In my opinion, that’s how homes should be sold, with greater transparency. So you can see who you’re bidding against and what the bids are. I think that should be the way it’s always done,” said Ciarán.
Daft.ie is Ireland’s number one property website and the best place to buy a home in Ireland.
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