Senza ipoteca in un accogliente cottage prima dei 40 anni: “Non ho risparmi, ma non ho nemmeno debiti”-The Irish Times
https://www.irishtimes.com/property/interiors/2025/02/23/mortgage-free-in-a-cosy-cottage-before-age-40-i-dont-have-any-savings-but-i-dont-have-any-debt-either/
di WickerMan111
13 commenti
Fair dues to her. We did something similar with personal loans because we were in good jobs but on fixed term contracts. No need for a big massive lump of a house.
I’m afraid the vacant homes grant has raised the floor on prices for a lot of these run down houses, which are great fixer-upper starter home prospects.
Fair play to her. I love the DIY revolution that is happening because of people sharing experiences on Instagram and so on. I do feel papers like The Irish Times and Cheap Irish Homes are peddling some of this stuff as a good news story that works alongside some sort of “where there is a will there is a way” ideology amongst those with more money or power that lets them ignore the real suffering people are going through.
You’d have to wonder as well, why we don’t see more bare bones construction being done – en masse – like literally just getting fairly standard off the shelf designs (perhaps akin to the Bungalow Blitz era approach) put up in the thousands in planned communities. Solid constructions, serviced properly and well insulated – all the interior decorating and “doing up” stuff is left to the new occupier to put their stamp on. I’d imagine it would cut out a lot of the value that is built into selling new homes if they were more or less left at a builders finished for people to sort out themselves?
It’s great if you can live and work near Millstreet ffs.
> She had purchased that house for €70,000, using a gift of money from her mother and loans, and in 2020 she put it on the market. She had renovated most of it herself, spending about nine months sleeping in a van and using a builder’s porta-loo type toilet on the site and showering in friends’ homes.
She didn’t split the €70k profits with her mother, just so we’re clear. But she kept flipping houses to get her own one at 40.
I’m not really sure what the point of this article is—whether it’s a humblebrag, trolling, or something else. I mean, kudos to her for working hard to become debt-free and own a home, but it’s not like her approach is something most people can replicate.
She bought a house in Dingle in 2015 with a gift from her mother and some loans. Then, five years later, she sold it for €130K, clearing her debt. After that, she bought a cheap house near Millstreet in Cork. But without the financial help from her mother and the fact that her first house nearly doubled in value, she wouldn’t have been able to do any of this.
Plus, now she’s living in the middle of nowhere, which might be great if you can get a job in that area, but it’s not a realistic option for most people.
The part that really got to me was the last line: “I don’t have any savings, but I don’t have any debt either.” Babes, most people don’t have savings either—what they *do* have is a lot of debt and are paying €2K a month in rent. It’s a bit tone-deaf considering the financial struggles many are facing.
“**Gift of money from her mother.”**
That definitely helps.
Irish journalism is poor fare. How long before the author is snapped up by a political party as seems to be the trend nowadays.
If I had been given “a small gift” of 20k, nevermind 70k between 2016-2018, I’d be ~200k better off today. What a load of out of touch wank this article is. They’re attributing her and her mother’s financial privilege as some kind of cute hoor savviness when it’s plain luck. The pandemic could (and should have) tanked the property market but for the fact that we’re living under decades of incompetent governance. All but one of my friends who bought at that time and since have got significant help from their parents or been on high salaries or both. You can no longer do what she did now, even if you got half a deposit from the parents, that cottage would cost 350k+ and require extensive renovations.
You always know before even opening these stories that a cash gift from the parents is lurking somewhere!
Have they ever published a story about someone who didn’t get a cash gift or buy a house when they cost like 7 euro and sold it for way more?
She missed a trick not getting a boiler stove, they’re perfect for those small cottages if you don’t want an oil/gas boiler.
Fuck sake. I can’t stand money illiteracy, debt isn’t a bad thing when used correctly
Why am I supposed to keep giving a crap about these people? Why do upper middle class get stories written about them in the press? It’s news that her parents bought her a house? Get tae fuck