CityLiving: High prices have led to the serial trader-upper, writes Edel Morgan

Are you living in your current home or biding your time until you can move to the next one? Trading your way up to your dream home can be an exciting endeavour but the danger is that intervening properties can represent stopgaps to be endured rather than homes to be enjoyed.

Bank of Ireland's last Irish Property Review found that trading-up is on the rise. It said a decline in the average loan-to-value ratio, while house prices continue to increase, indicates that people are using the equity built up in previous homes to trade-up.

The relative ease with which people can move onwards and upwards toward their ultimate property is a reversal of the situation faced by previous generations when financial institutions were less forthcoming - and often a person's first property was also their last. The upside of staying put was that people knew their neighbours, knew what was happening in the community and, if they were not living in their ideal location, they made the best of it.

Even though it's now easier to borrow from the banks in recent years, to get your ideal house you may have to trade-up several times - a process that can take years particularly if you've just got your foot on the ladder. It helps if you make a killing on each property - unless a rich spouse, lotto win or large inheritance should speed you on your way.

A 34-year-old engineer told City Living her master plan to one day own a sea view property in Howth, Co Dublin, has meant that she has never really "stopped to smell the roses" while living in her first two properties. "Like many first-time buyers I had to buy in a location that was far from my ideal. It was handy enough for work but I didn't know the area very well and didn't make an effort to join any community groups or activities. I lived there for nearly three years but I only knew my next door neighbour to say 'hi' and never attended any residents association meetings. I suppose I knew I wouldn't be staying."

She regrets not making more of an effort because her memory of that period was "a bit of a blur. It's almost like it never happened because I was never really fully present. I was always looking ahead."

Her second house - where she still lives - is closer to Howth but she admits she sees it as "a step on the ladder. It's reasonably near Howth so I can still visit all the restaurants and bars there and stroll along the pier at the weekends. Everyone tells me that it's a lovely house in a nice location and it's near my friends, but I've never seen it as a permanent home, which might be foolish as property prices in Howth are way out of my league at present and I hate to admit it to myself but I may never get there."

Not that you should stick with a property that no longer suits your requirements. Life coach Ann Kelly believes that the reason behind the decision to trade-up is important. "Is the family expanding, and you need more room? Or do you want to move for the love of a different experience? When there's a sense that this move fits with who you are and feels right, why not do it?" she says. "However, these trends can be driven by fear, in which case we have an underlying unease. We seek the outer security of possessions. We stockpile investments so that we can feel secure. We don't know what is enough sometimes. Even millionaires can feel that they haven't enough and so keep investing for the rainy day."

She believes that the need for security motivates many people. "It causes them to stay in jobs they hate, to invest beyond their comfort zone and compromise their today for a tomorrow that will never come. Getting what you want, or not is irrelevant. What's important is what it means to you. If you get what you want and it's not what you thought it would be, then you will be disappointed. If you get what you want and it is exactly what you want, then you may be happy for a time."

The build up of anticipation before acquiring that destination house can be followed by anti-climax, if expectations are too high. You might wonder why you are not in a permanent state of bliss, are disappointed that the new neighbours are less than friendly or nostalgic because you miss the old ones. You realise you've swapped one set of four walls for another - albeit far better appointed ones - or there is more upkeep on the property than expected. There can also be fall-out at a societal level when enough people move into a community with the view that it's temporary. The result can be a transient population which makes little effort to get involved in the community.

The Taoiseach's invitation to author and Harvard professor Robert Puttnam to speak at Fianna Fail's annual two-day parliamentary party meeting in Cavan earlier this week about the importance of active community participation reflects a level of concern about the increasing dislocation of Irish communities. Although Ireland has traditionally had a high level of social participation and neighbourliness, the demands of modern life have made us more focused on our own lives at the expense of the wider community. In our hunger to trade-up, the trade-off has been the support network a strong community can provide.

Life coach Ann Kelly can be contacted at 021-4354725