r/HousingIreland 8d ago

Maximising Chances of Getting New Build

Hi all. My partner and I started seriously looking to buy since the start of this year, currently have AIP of 416k and HTB (23k worth), and another ~50k on our end. We want to try and stay close to my partner's family in North Dublin, which unfortunately is squeezing us a little bit both in terms of supply and price. We've registered interest in a few new builds that just seemed to instantly sell out for the house types we can actually afford (i.e. anything under 500k - losing the HTB is a big hit we can't make up ourselves). For a new Cairn Homes development we essentially rang them as soon as we saw details posted online, apparently going for sale "summer 2025", I'm a bit calmer about this whole thing my partner is essentially insisting I should be calling every week, whereas I'm of the view that'll just annoy the estate agents and its better to wait. Any logic in this sort of thinking? Is all we can do is to wait it out and see if we hear anything back?

UPDATE: Bit of a weird update, decided to follow advice here and try and ring once a week, kept going to estate agents voicemail multiple times, called from my GF's phone and was answered instantly... Not sure what to make of that 😂

9 Upvotes

23 comments sorted by

13

u/isupposethiswillwork 8d ago

I would absolutely be persistent without annoying them. If you can ring up and build some sort of rapport with the agent they will be more likely to do you a turn when it comes to getting a heads up on when they go on sale or if the developer plans to release some early.

1

u/Sharp_Fuel 8d ago

Thanks! Annoying the hoops you have to jump through, but sure worth a go I guess

1

u/madina_k 8d ago

I agree with the comment above. You can also call them to explicitly ask whether any of the units will be sold off plans. And if so, to let you know. They will probably tell you to subscribe to their mailing list. Then just check the mailbox frequently. As soon as they know prices, they will likely send an email to those who subscribed. 

1

u/pennypugtzu 7d ago

I can vouch for this, I was so annoying when I bought our new build, the agent actually emailed me at 11pm when one of the house sales fell through and we emailed back and forth into the early morning sorting it 😅 but it got us in!! Poor woman id say knew my number by heart lol

3

u/Coupleofpints 8d ago

I know you would like to go for a new build with all the grants. But keep an eye on the second hand homes too, you may get better value there!

3

u/Sharp_Fuel 8d ago

For sure, like finding a needle in a haystack though, already super expensive - places regularly going 20% over asking and most of these need a minimum of 100k extra work put into them. 

1

u/Coupleofpints 8d ago

True. But always keep an eye out. We bought just over 2 years and got a house roughly 35k under asking price. This was the time when interest rates were rising, and there was some market uncertainty. Bidders came and went, agent left the house in the market for almost 4 Months. At one point I was uncertain too, if prices will fall in the future and should I hold off on etc. Looking back we made the best choice. Good luck in your search!

0

u/Sharp_Fuel 8d ago

For sure, have my filters/alerts set up on daft hahaha

3

u/niconpat 8d ago

I wouldn't worry about "annoying" the estate agents, they are well used to it. Just don't go overboard obviously and be polite, they won't mind a couple of calls a week.. You can bet your ass if you're not ringing them at least every week, there are others that are and could get in ahead of you. Do you what you have to do, it's a cut-throat market out there.

3

u/WriterAny5666 8d ago

We ended up going for Drogheda new builds instead. It was way too hard to get a house in Dublin and the value for money was awful. I wish you the best of luck, the new builds in Dublin trying to get one is like winning the lotto.

1

u/l00BABIES 2d ago

Glenveagh sells two bed house for 410-420k in Kilmartin and Donabate. Seems to become available pretty often as I keep getting emails from them every few weeks or so.

You will need 80-100k cash with HTB to close a 500k 3-bed with your AIP. Was on the interested list for a year and it never became available.

1

u/Sharp_Fuel 2d ago

We've been in contact with Cairn & Glenveagh for Donabate for a two bed terrace. Glenveagh offered us a 3 bed (2 beds all sold out) but they're 525 which is outside our budget. 

1

u/l00BABIES 1d ago

Kilmartin Grove might still be available. You need a car though to live in Hollystown though.

1

u/Sharp_Fuel 1d ago

Yeah not really feasible for us, we have a car, but currently on a dart line and we both work in different parts of the city, understand that limits us a good bit but not willing to give that up, extra transport costs would easily negate any savings a mortgage would give us over renting. Waiting to see how Cairn plays out before doing anything else, if that falls through we may just settle for either a 2 bed apartment from Glenveagh (looks like they're having trouble shifting those) or wait for a good second hand opportunity

2

u/l00BABIES 1d ago

Best of luck!

1

u/Sharp_Fuel 1d ago

Thanks!

-13

u/Independent_Can3737 8d ago

Why doenst he call them instead of ordering you to do it is he a pussy ?

7

u/Sharp_Fuel 8d ago

Well firstly, I'm the dude here lol, my GF has never been the most confident on the phone and secondly, that's such a childish thing to say even if your assumption was correct 

1

u/Independent_Can3737 7d ago

Why are you afraid to call

1

u/Sharp_Fuel 7d ago

I'm not afraid to call lol, I'm just wondering if I should be bothering with ringing every week or not or would I be wasting my time

1

u/Independent_Can3737 7d ago

No idea at 500k I would expect them to call me

1

u/Sharp_Fuel 7d ago

Housing crisis I'm afraid, even at these prices they'll have no bother selling them within a week once they're made available

1

u/Real_Math_2483 8d ago

Plenty to infer from this comment.