Financial reality bites - but it also motivates, writes Isabel Morton

IT WAS, as one furniture remover remarked to me last week, “a strange summer”. And, I think I know what he meant.

If by strange he meant unusual, then it was certainly that. It might best be described as an open and honest summer, when the nation revealed all and told it like it was, on the national airwaves.

Grown men cried in frustration, mothers despaired on behalf of their children and there was an explosion of pent- up anger expressed by one and all, as at last, they surfaced from the shock, which had silenced them for the past few years.

The economic fallout, which had been predicted, kicked in and became a reality – and people have been forced into taking action.

“We see it all: life, death and everything in between,” he informed me ominously, as he leaned up against the removals truck and gulped down his mug of milky tea.

“Nobody budged for ages as we were all stuck to the ground with fright, but now it’s all action again. Not that we’re complaining, any work is better than no work, but jobs these days are not what they used to be. Mostly, it’s people moving because they have to, not because they want to.”

He went on to give me a few colourful examples, including one featuring a six-year old girl crying pitifully as she watched her toys and dolls being packed away in boxes to be transported “down under”, and another about a separating couple fighting over whose relations gave which wedding presents.

“We moved one family from Dublin to their summerhouse in Co Galway. The kids thought they were off on their holidays, they didn’t realise it was for good. And lots of families have put all their stuff in storage and headed off abroad. If they settle, they will eventually send for their things. And loads of the younger crowd have sold up or rented out their places and moved back into shared rentals or back in with their folks. Even some of the older ones, who once had a good few bob set aside, have lost most of it and are ‘retiring’ early to their places in Spain or Portugal.”

Hoping to cheer up the tea break, I enquired of any good news stories. “A few,” he conceded somewhat reluctantly. “There was one a few weeks ago, where we moved a guy and his family who’d been renting for ages and they eventually bought a place. Apparently, it was a house they’d been after a few years ago but didn’t get. They got it this time because it had to be sold on again pronto. He got it at less than half the price it sold for back then.”

“So, they must have been delighted,” I responded enthusiastically.

“Yeah. He was all right. Absolutely bloody thrilled with himself, he was. And we had to spend the whole day having to listen to all the stories about how clever he’d been and how he’d seen it coming and all that.” However, it’s doubtful that anyone saw it coming quite to the extent that it has.

Few could ever have foreseen the day when so many, right across the social spectrum, would suddenly find themselves “financially embarrassed”.

The difference now being that they are no longer reticent to talk about it. These days, people are open and honest about their situation, as they realise that they are not suffering alone. Adopting a wartime approach to the situation, they are now doing whatever it takes to survive. Pride has been pushed aside.

“Renting is obviously the new buying,” a friend observed as we talked about the number of people we knew who had recently chosen to take a financial hit and sell their homes now, with the intention of renting long-term.

The reasons for doing so were many and varied, including a separation, a renovation, an imminent emigration and sadly, the threat of repossession. But there were also a few who were selling purely to get out from under the thumbs of their banks.

Having spent the last few years living in fear of not being able to cover their mortgage and living expenses, they’ve decided that they could no longer tolerate the financial and emotional strain and have cashed in their chips, repaid a chunk of their bank loan, and in doing so, have bought themselves some time.

Ironically, they may have also bought themselves an improved standard of living because, apart from the fact that they are relieved of living under such severe financial pressure, they are now able to rent a better-quality home, in a far superior location, than they could ever have afforded to buy. Perhaps this “opt out before you are thrown out” approach might become a trend. We could start living like many of our European neighbours, as life-long tenants rather than as property owners. It may end up being easier on our pockets and would, most definitely, be easier on our nerves.

• Isabel Morton is a property consultant