To find an accommodation

Alright. Now. We laugh. Dublin is in a middle of a real estate crisis. A violent one. The city does not succeed to develop itself as quickly as needed to cover immigration flow. In 2013, the city launched a real estate programme. The objective: to build 150 000 accommodations by end of 2018. In 2016, the city had built 13 or 15 000 accommodations only. Furthermore, the Irish people were saying that the 150 000 planned were not enough. But the lack of available accommodations put another issue…

Everyday, landlords evict Irish and expatriates because they raise the rent price all the time, enjoying an excessive demand and an almost non-existent supply.
Accommodation will be your main concern in Dublin. Everyone talk about it. Everybody have been suffered or are suffering about it.
Each year, many expatriates return to their home country or change destination because it is impossible to stay in Dublin without an accommodation.
Don’t think it will be easier to find a bedroom because you don’t want an entire flat. Or just a studio because you don’t care having a palace… No, no, no. You struggle, everywhere, for all types of accommodations. Couples, with 2 good salaries, also have a hard time to find an accommodation.
Globally, it’s hard to find an accommodation, because there isn’t so many adverts and a high demand, when you budget is less than or equal to 1600€, excluding bills. You can also meet difficulties up to 1800€.

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Studio flat. 950€/month. Excluding bills. Very wet…

In the morning, you will wake up
On your phone, you will look up
To the adverts, quickly, you will answer
To the agencies, you will be the first caller
Of visits, you will be a good organiser

Each morning, thousands of people receive daily alerts from different real estate websites.
At 9 o’clock, you receive your alerts. At 09:03, the ad is not online anymore. People are jumping on ads to get the opportunity to visit.

The best website for real estate in Ireland, and the most used and visited, is daft.ie. I strongly advise you to create daily automatic notification.

BE CAREFUL! Hoax and bad practises are common. Agencies and landlords take advantage of tenants’ misery to do things against ethics’ rules.
Don’t pay for a visit booking! Yep, you read correctly. Agencies will ask you to pay, just to have the right to visit the accommodation! But this booking won’t give you any priority on the accommodation…
Don’t pay any rent, deposit, flat booking, before you visit it! Flat bookings can be asked. Agencies can ask you a part of the deposit and say this booking will be deducted from the final deposit when you will take the accommodation. If you decide not to take it, the agency will never give the money back. This practise pushes you to accept quickly. From my point of view, the agency applying this rule is probably not the most ethical, and the accommodation surely hide 2-3 nice surprises. Be very careful…

For my studio, even horrible, I signed a contract with Brady Property Management, that never gave me any awful surprise and they did plenty of works in my building.

To find an accommodation in Dublin is a story about motivation, tenacity, and luck! No, I am not talking about getting a pilot position, or pass an exam or obtain a diploma, but to sign a tenancy agreement…

Few ads, unlikely to get a visit. But when you will get a visit, do not expect to be alone. You can expect to have 20 people already waiting! For more than an hour, under the rain (hey, remember, it’s Ireland). All this to end up not visiting the flat because someone gave the rent and deposit in cash just before you! Yes, you still can do this kind of things.
You can also go to the flat and wait. But no one’s here. When you call the agent/landlord, you discover that the accommodation is already taken by someone else who visited it just before you and the agent didn’t tell you.
Anyway, be patient.

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