Hello straw man

Your argument could be used to legalise heroin, by the way

I bought an apartment in 2007 and lived there happily for 13 years. I loved it. A lot will depend on your neighbours and how well the OMC maintain the blocks, it'll irritate you if it's not well kept, but I honestly couldn't find any regrets

Ha nice. I wish mine did it more

Bought a used car three years ago. Looked at the price, did a quick calculation in my head based on past experience and thought to myself "grand, they're really only looking for €X"

They were not, in fact, looking for my fantasy figure, they were indeed looking for the list price.

I managed to squeeze another €500 out of my trade in. That's generally the only area you MIGHT get a bit of movement

At 80% LTV and above, they'd be paying even more with PTSB on a three year fixed

Google loan amortisation calculator online and punch the numbers. It'll show you the difference in monthly repayment between the two.

Often this might show the cashback is worth slightly more over the five year period but, because the alternative is 48 months rather than 60, a true comparison is impossible.

Things to consider:

If you're like many people, you're probably going to clear yourself out in buying and sorting the house, so how likely is it you'll have the means to retain the cashback and use it to support the mortgage repayments? Many people will find that cash will be spent and you'll be left with a higher monthly cost

Completely impossible to predict rate movements but there's indications that four years from now, rates should be below current levels, meaning a lower repayment again than on the 4.45% rate, which will have a year to run

Overall, really hard to say. I was in the same boat lately and opted for the green rate. The cashback would have been nice, but I just about got out the other side of the purchase with what we had, and my monthly repayment is around €230 less than it would have been if we'd taken cash

I hear you but, as people are starting to understand, this goes to the integrity of the blocks at a fundamental level. It's not just confirming property boundaries and looking for leaks

A combined income of €250,000 will buy this house. It's a lovely income, but, as has already been pointed out several times in this thread, it's within reach of two GPs, two solicitors, two senior accountants, etc.

Do people inherit these houses and live on in them? I'm sure some do, but without claiming any special insight, I'd imagine that represents a minority of owners

You pay an engineer €750 plus vat to do a type 2 survey of a home you're buying as part of your due diligence, having gone sale agreed. Some people don't bother

You don't go sale agreed on a possible mica house, then pay €8,000 of your own funds and wait 8 to 12 weeks for results to come back from the UK before deciding whether to proceed

And where's the testing company going? Why are you trusting the seller? You're not taking someone's word for it. It's an engineer's report commissioned and produced by an independent third party and supplied to your own engineer for assessment. Part of that process involves validating the credentials of the engineer or practice that produced the report. The information will be further assessed by your lender before agreeing to release funds for the purchase

Not just an extreme example but an irrelevant one

The properties being discussed in this thread were almost all desirable and more expensive than most others during all periods of their existence. Even the one that started this thread would have been built for a wealthy businessman or civil servant etc of the period. These were always solidly middle or upper middle class properties.

There may indeed be many older people living in these properties whose current circumstances are out of sync with their net worth on paper, but once upon a time they bought that house when the vast majority couldn't have afforded to.

The numbers have changed, but the desirability and exclusivity of those homes held up through most periods

Can you walk to your law firm on Stephens Green from there?

And, by the way, should you mention to reddit.com that you're even THINKING about buying any car that isn't a 12 year old Nissan Qashqai, then reap the consequences

Is it your argument that lots of people living in these extremely valuable properties, that have always been ultimately desirable and expensive relative to the periods in which they were bought, are essentially poor once the asset is discounted?

It's worth what someone will pay. No more and no less

As are homes as far south as Kilkenny and Wexford. It's still talked of exclusively as a Donegal issue, but it's already known to be much more widespread

All very true but you wonder what their combined salaries cost the club. Imagine it's £50,000 each per annum on average. I suspect that's probably a generous guess. So that'd be a combined £12,500,000 per annum, or a smidge over £240,000 a week.

You'd have to find it hard to swallow being part of a mass redundancy that saves the club 1.2 Antonys

I also don't understand why people still do it. All cars offer the most basic Bluetooth connectivity for phones. It's not like needing to buy and fit a "car kit" like years ago.

Saw a fully tricked out, very new (northern reg so couldn't say the year, but I'd be amazed if it was more than three years old), very expensive looking VW Touareg today. The dipshit driving was on a call holding his phone. Why?? It's literally harder not to connect your phone

It's the seller's job to prove their property is mica-free or otherwise. Why would a prospective buyer be responsible for paying to have someone else's property tested?

The buyer isn't doing any sampling

You simply don't engage without the vendor making an up to date engineer's report available to you. Not to be smart, but it's as simple as that. The mica test costs several grand and can take around 8 weeks. It's an awful burden for homeowners looking to sell but unfortunately unavoidable.

If you see a property online that interests you, contact the agent and ask if any report is available. If not, unless the property construction date falls well outside the period of concern*, you move on to the next one

*do a bit of research on this one. I'm not sure of the dates

€167 gross is worth €100 after PAYE @ 40% (no relief for PRSI or USC, unfortunately)

So, if you take €100 from your saved after-tax income and stick it into an EFT for example, it would need to grow by 67% before it catches up with the value of the equivalent pension contribution (which is the same €100 but before tax)

True, but he's looking for validation to stop

So you're complaining about a return that isn't your actual return.

Right

Well, it's returning twice what you've quoted for the past five years before charges.

The highest fee you're likely to be paying is 1.25% AMC if through a PRSA (1% base plus .25% non standard fund charge) so you're doing better than 5% pa

Yup, a few times. Roy Ayers in the Sugar Club, O Emperor farewell gig in Grand Social, The Liminanas in GS as well.

Wanted to go, no one could join me at the time, went anyway. Enjoyed every minute, no one looked at me twice from what I could tell