HOUSE HUNTER:The neighbourhood is not very exciting but the neighbours are lovely and the area has plenty of good facilities, writes DON MORGAN.
AN ESTATE agent told us, highlighting changes in the property market, that a young couple, not much younger or older than us, had said that in their wildest dreams they never dreamt of being able to live in Kilmacud. Yep, you heard it, not Biarritz, but a neighbourhood as exciting as Enda Kenny’s hairdo. But it was just this sentence which pretty much captures our search for a home thus far. And, what’s more, we actually think the good times might roll from this unlikeliest of areas.
It’s a tribute to the dark arts employed by marketing types during the boom that people felt that Dublin, and in particular established, though thoroughly unremarkable neighbourhoods such as Kilmacud, were able to command extortionate prices and the moniker of ‘sought after’. In fairness, I think many such areas were sought after in the sense that Adolf Eichmann was being sought after by the Israeli Secret Service.
Now we stood in this very area with a choice of two houses, which I mentioned last week, wondering what they could bring us in the way of a new and better life.
One was lovely, perfect condition, with a laneway running down the side of it. Did we like it? Yes. Love it, eh, not so much. Curiously, down the road, we saw the other house: The Blue Phantom.
On the market after sales fell through twice and, from our uninformed point of view, this was inexplicable, despite the house’s slightly neglected condition. In this case, we wouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth. We liked it a lot. And sure, what’s wrong with getting your hands a little dirty renovating?
The agent told us the background to the sale: a man’s aunt had gone into a home and the sale of the house was to pay for her care. It could have been to help pay off Zimbabwe’s national debt for all we cared, we just wanted a house. The asking price was €510,000, but now they were looking for €475,000.
The house was so close to work you could cycle, but not so close that angry students of ours would be able to find us and egg our windows. My wife could have her car back, which was battered and bruised after she let me learn to drive in it using gate posts to keep me on the straight and narrow.
I was quite excited about the house for two other reasons. One was that it was across the road from one of my favourite lecturers in college. The other that it was within walking distance of my mother’s house, a big thing, particularly if we were to have kids any time soon. Three doors down from a familiar local pub, I rang my mum:
“And do you know how far it is from your place by foot?”
“Twelve minutes, dear. Where do you think your father and I used to go to on a Friday night?” Touché, mama.
The house ticked boxes, and met our conception of a convenient suburban life: schools within walking distance, shops at the end of the road, public transport. It was exciting in its ordinariness. We could overcome the fact that we didn’t love it, that the kitchen was in ribbons and that the downstairs area was cramped and dark. This was it. This was the one.
We went for a walk, which people should do in areas they intend to live in. Go have a look, say hello to the neighbours. As we strolled, I bored the arse off my wife about my inglory days of studying linguistics in UCD. We looked into pristine front gardens and laughed at the acne-ridden rugby-playing teenyboppers posing on the pavement, wearing as much fake tan as their girlfriends. Herself shuddered and made me promise we’d spend our summers in Kildare to counteract the highlights in our own children’s hair. That was a tough negotiation I can tell you.
“Will we make an offer so?” I asked casually.
We decided to give it a go. We had the mortgage approval, and this was in our price range. We wouldn’t offer the full amount.
I picked up the phone.
