I wasn’t really planning on buying a house when I started my search. What I had been planning for since 2018 was selling a house. I had bought a condo in the Boston area in 1998 and had been renting it since 2005 and it just felt like it was time to sell-up in Boston and make a whole-hearted commitment to Dublin. The problem was what to do with that money – I’m not the greatest investor with the stock market and real estate seems to be my only investment talent so I went on the hunt to find a place here in Dublin. I searched in the nearby neighbourhood of Sandymount because a lot of our lives are centred in that area. Silly me – I thought the pandemic would drive house prices down and I’d get a real bargain and stand out from the crowd of buyers because I was in a good cash position. Boy, was I wrong!
When I expanded my search to other areas, I found a house for sale on one of my very favourite streets in my own neighbourhood – just across the park from where we’d been living for 11 years. I knew I wanted a project and I guess you could say I found one. But I also found a beautiful spot with a big (by Dublin standards) front yard and a big back yard. The house backs up to the park so it’s surrounded by trees and has a great sunny southwest aspect.
So, the journey to buying this house really began four years ago now and has culminated to my biggest project yet. I hope to track some progress and inspiration here to help keep friends and family back in the US in the loop on all the changes. Join me?