At what point does buying a house constitute a moral dilemma?
I ask the question after an afternoon spent trawling the property pages of Ireland's newspapers and numerous estate agents online.
Why was I doing that? Well, perhaps I have finally found Plan B – perhaps, maybe, possibly.
Admittedly greed and opportunism are fuelling the thought of Ireland as my next move and therein lies the moral dilemma. As a result of the financial crisis, Ireland's housing has suffered horrendous falls in equity. A whole government website has been created to list repossessions; everything from a piece of agricultural land to a nearly completed office block or shopping centre.
Ghost estates with half-finished, empty houses are a searing reminder of the once seemingly unstoppable Celtic Tiger boom and its subsequent collapse.
Bust building firms have simply abandoned the sites leaving the odd family marooned in an island of dereliction. Auctions, where four-bedroomed modern houses are offered for as little as €68,000 (around £53,500) are failing to attract buyers, although just last year cash investors queued outside Dublin's Shelbourne Hotel to snap up new apartments and town houses with up to 60% off the asking price.
A penthouse costing €1 million three years ago sold for €345,000.
But a bargain is only a bargain if you can afford it, and the banks and mortgage lenders are reluctant to release funds as prices continue to fall. Mortgage lending is at a 40-year low.
Unemployment, negative equity and seemingly little hope on the horizon leave the Irish with the age-old answer – emigration. It is predicted that by the end of the year up to 75,000 people will go; higher than the levels of the late 1980s.
And therein lies the moral dilemma. Buying at this time is to take advantage of people's misery – houses and flats imbued with the sour smell of failure and the trace memory of hope. Such thoughts are not merely fanciful. Over and over in the comments section under the stories relating to housing, people are exhorted not to profit from the banks' profligacy; not to do down fellow Irishmen and women by exploitation.
Others urge that the ghost villages be handed over to the homeless and the unemployed but such altruism is unlikely to find any takers.
I felt any moral qualms oozing from me as I flicked an online brochure of four fine Georgian townhouses transformed into elegant apartments with private gardens and concierge service. At the heart of Dublin's "Belgravia" many had remained unsold, slipping down and down in price. It seems possible now that a two-bedroomed, two bathroom marble- and granite-festooned apartment could be haggled for €250,000. A steal.
I spent a pleasant hour or two visualising myself skipping out of my townhouse, wandering around to the Shelbourne to meet a friend; window shopping in Grafton Street.
Perhaps moral dilemmas anyway were long overcome by those of us who moved to France to take advantage of the euro; the advantage of cheap housing as the French turned their backs on the land and moved to shiny new bungalows.
But if those who came before me drove up prices by selling at the peak in the UK and buying, to us, cheap in France, then the wheel has most definitely turned. House prices here have dropped and continue to drop.
One British couple I heard of, desperate to sell, had cut the asking price until they could go no further to have any chance of buying in England. They'd been doing that for two and a half years.
A Belgian couple were very keen, returning on the third visit with a derisory offer. When told by the estate agent it was not acceptable, apparently the man simply smiled then said: "We're in no hurry. Shall we make an appointment for this time next year? We both know the house will still be on the market and I'll repeat my offer. I think it will seem very attractive by then."
Even the agent was shocked by their cynical approach, but they were probably right.
In the main our houses are not pleasing to the French. The things we deem as necessities – good bathrooms, equipped kitchens, timber and slated floors – do not set their hearts racing. Neither does land. They see only the work required to keep it constrained. While all French talk longingly of a spiritual country home; few, except those born to it, want the burden that comes with it.
Plus when we put a price-tag, usually €100,000 above anything the French may be selling, we kill our chances stone dead.
The irony is it is not greed demanding the price. Often it is what has been spent on restoration and sellers are lucky to draw even.
In the end it's karma. These days few of us can indulge in moral dilemmas, more's the pity. n
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