The house hunt continues....

I haven't blogged in AGES and I'm still on the house hunt - in fact I have basically turned into a serial house hunter but not in an enjoyable way. It's not a hobby any more. I actually want to buy a house but we haven't found "the one". I feel that at this stage it is most unlikely that we ever will.

I think I have almost single handedly been responsible for the stats recently released by MyHome.ie about their site usage that said something along the lines of them getting about 1 million hits per week.

In my searches it is still quite shocking how much estate agents are valuing houses at. For example this house on Pleasants St that recently came to the market. Now, location wise it's pretty good, and it has a garden...but that it about it. It appears that you would have to practically rebuild from scratch.

I realise in the general "Felicity Fox" scheme of things €400k doesn't seem that expensive but when you have to spend the same on a rebuild, you'd have to think twice (or not at all) about your spend.

Another house that I saw online recently in a similarly "fine" state to Felicity's house on Pleasants Street is (Fleicity like's to say fine a lot opportunity to acquire a very fine period property", "another fine bedroom", "very fine two storey " etc)Walford on Shrewsbury Road. Now, they are asking €15 million which is just slightly over budget for me but I wouldn't view it anyway because for that bargain basement price, again you'll pretty much need to rebuild it too.

Now to be fair to them (I don't know why I feel the need to be?!) but the house did sell for €58 million in 2005 so it's come down in price somewhat and also, you could have international sporting events in the back garden but still...

Much like the house I saw back in October 2010 in Sandymount (see below) it's still shocking how unrealistic estate agents and vendors are being. Get real people. So unless you're a builder-lotto winner, keep searching....

If you have seen any propoerties online that are similarly outrageous please share!

Vivian Maier

I came across this video yesterday about photographer Vivan Maier via Twitter. It's really worth a look (it's only 10 mins or so). It makes me want to take loads of photos and get going with my new Christmas pressie of a photo developing kit (Thanks Jim!)

2010 - The year of the splits!

Well, if I don't scribble this down now it will no longer be relevant....actuallly it's relevance is pretty dubious to begin with but that's neither here nor there.

On a car trip to Galway last July, Jim, Po and myself were talking about how many couples seem to be splitting up in 2010...both celebrity and people we knew, so to pass the time we started to compile a list. So here it is. Please feel free to add to it.

Clare & Pat
Alan Quinlan & Ruth Griffin
Lenny Henry & Dawn French (25 years???)
Ronan & Yvonne Keating
Ashley & Cheryl Cole
Charlotte Church & Gavin Henson
Katie Price & Peter Andre (or was that in 2009?)
Sile Seoige & hubs
Grainne Seoige & hubs
John & Toni Terry
Tiger Woods & Elin Nordegren
Mairead Farrell & hubs
Wayne Bridge & Vanessa Perroncel
Kerry Katona & Mark Croft
Dan & Dee
Diane & John
Liz Hurley & Arun Nayar
Scarlett Johansson & Ryan Reynolds
Eva Longoria & Tony Parker
Tim Robbins & Susan Sarandon
Al & Tipper Gore (after 40 years!)
Courteney Cox & David Arquette

That's all I have but sadly I'm sure there are plenty more where that came from...

"There is no trouble so great or grave that cannot be much diminished by a nice cup of tea." Bernard-Paul Heroux

Interesting article in today's Guardian paper about "pop-up arts tearooms" in Birmingham.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/jan/04/pop-up-arts-tea-rooms-birmingham

House hunting

I've been house hunting in Dublin recently. More out of curiosity and slight boredom than any actual desire to purchase...an expensive hobby.

Reading the papers and listening to the news, you'd be under the impression that you'd pick up a pretty decent house in a nice area for the half of nothing, or two for the price of one in a slightly less desireable location but it is not the case.

I viewed a house in Sandymount the other day, quoting €340k. When we went to look at it, it was over-run with people who thought they were on to a good thing. It was in a shockingly bad state. The walls were wet to the touch and the smell of damp was overpowering & there were cracks everywhere.

The auctioneer had conveniently "forgotten" to bring the keys of the garage, but if you got up on your tippy-toes, you could see through the tiny glass panels at the top of the garage door that
A) the roof had caved in and
B) there was no room to park a car...it was a triangular shaped space. However the Estate Agent insisted that you'd fit a car in....maybe you could if you drive a Fiat 500.

The agent also informed us that there was a mistake on the website and the price was actually €360k...they probably up-ed the estimate when they realised the huge interest the property had generated. It was a money pit, and I pity the poor sod who is going to end up pouring money in to rebuilding the whole thing from scratch because that is all you can do with it. You're merely purchasing an address.

We looked at another one yesterday, this was in Kimmage, the price quoted here was €375k. Nice house, nice surrounding area, lots of green areas for kids to play etc. We got talking to one group of children on the green afterwards...they wanted to know if we were moving out or in to the house. They were also asking us if we were going to dress up for Halloween. We said that we weren't but asked them what they suggest our baby should dress up as. One suggested that he dress up as a bumble bee like their neighbour's baby did last year. The other kid on the bike said we should dress him up and that he could borrow his dad's "REAL pump action shot gun and REAL hand gun". He seemed to think this was hilarious and proceeded to laugh loudly revealing several gold teeth. The child was about 7 years old. Classy. Something tells me we won't be moving to Kimmage any time soon!

I'll keep you posted...

E

A new level of classy...

A new level of classy has reached the €2 shop on Thomas St...2 for €2!