Moneymakeover 24 year old couple saving for a mortgage in Dublin

C

C.R.E.A.M

Registered User
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Personal details

My age: 25
Partner's age : 24

children: 0


Income and expenditure
Annual gross income from employment: 58k flat up to 70k with overtime

Annual gross income ofpartner: 31k flat up to 43k with commission/overtime

Monthly take-home pay: combined €5760 flat up to €6300 with overtime

Type of employment: employee
Employer type: electrical

Partner
Type of employment: employee
Employer type: private sector



Summary of Assets and Liabilities
car value: one is under a €1000 two is around €12k
Mortgage deposit savings-€16k started in November 2024

Other borrowings – car loans/personal loans etc
Car loan: 5 years 10k one year in 5.6k left paying off more. min payments are 180 a month

Pension information

Value of pension fund: under 3k
PRSA is €42 a week


Other information which might be relevant
Both saving 1k each a month for the remainder of the year and aggressively saving from January next year to build up deposit

Our monthly out goings from January is roughly between 1000-1200 not including what we spend on ourselves we think 80-100 each a week is reasonable ?

Currently both of us live at home.

From using mortgage calculators we can get a mortgage of roughly 350k


What specific question do you have or what issues are of concern to you?
are we on the right track to get a mortgage for a house in the tallaght clondalkin Lucan greater area ? From keeping an eye on the property price register I can see that we will need closer to 80k for a deposit as the houses are going for 400k plus. We are nervous that we won’t keep up with housing prices with the way we are saving it feels like we will always be a few steps behind. Is there anything we should do to give us the best chances. Any advice appreciated. Thank you and apologies if all relevant information isn’t on the post.
 
C.R.E.A.M said:
Mortgage deposit savings-€16k started in November 2024

Other borrowings – car loans/personal loans etc
Car loan: 5 years 10k one year in 5.6k left paying off more. min payments are 180 a month
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Clear the car loan now unless there is a severe penalty for doing so. It makes no sense to be saving while paying this and lenders will baulk at unsecured borrowing.
 
FANTANA said:
Do you need a 12k car? Could you sell it and buy a 2-3k car, with the 9k pay off the loan and put the balance in your savings, this will free up another €180 for savings too.
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It’s a reliable Toyota that I plan to keep for as long as possible nothing fancy. To expand on my loan situation I will be loan free by November/December. So before we do our 6 months saving for mortgage approval it won’t be a factor.
 
Seeing as you work in electrical I’m assuming you are reasonably handy? Don’t be afraid of buying a fixer upper, especially since you are child free living through a fixer upper at your age is very doable.
 
FANTANA said:
eeing as you work in electrical I’m assuming you are reasonably handy? Don’t be afraid of buying a fixer upper, especially since you are child free living through a fixer upper at your age is very doable.
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I like to think I am haha! That is the route I have been thinking about something to fix up as we go along plus I know a lot of people in trades I would be useless in. Sometimes I feel a bit hopeless with housing prices ever since I’ve started looking at them 2-3 years ago. so this post is more about putting me at ease all we want is an average house in a nice area.
 
C.R.E.A.M said:
I have been thinking about something to fix up as we go along
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This.

Worst house in the best area is what you want.

Otherwise posting to say good job; you have your heads screwed on.

If the 'spend on ourselves' budget includes eating out / takeaways see if you can ditch that.

Hobbies & socialising are important, but six months of saving the beer money & taking up hill walking instead could make a big difference.
 
24601 said:
Where on this island is one purchasing a car for this money in the year of Our Lord 2025 that isn't an absolute crock? He'd need the 9k to repair the yoke.
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There are over 7,500 cars available on donedeal for 3k or less. Some will be bangers but there will be many cars still with plenty of life in them. A young couple trying to get on the property market in Dublin do not need a 12K car. Again if he’s handy a lot of maintenance can be done himself. There’s a lot to be said for an older estate car when doing up a house, use it and abuse it for three years towing and roof racking things to your fixer upper.
 
DannyBoyD said:
If the 'spend on ourselves' budget includes eating out / takeaways see if you can ditch that
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This would include the beer money we have a holiday and other events coming up this year so from January it’ll be even less we will only be doing free or nearly free stuff.
 
FANTANA said:
There are over 7,500 cars available on donedeal for 3k or less. Some will be bangers but there will be many cars still with plenty of life in them. A young couple trying to get on the property market in Dublin do not need a 12K car. Again if he’s handy a lot of maintenance can be done himself. There’s a lot to be said for an older estate car when doing up a house, use it and abuse it for three years towing and roof racking things to your fixer upper.
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Understand where your coming from but I am looking at the greater picture I have a bit of faith that the car i have now will last me 10 years
 
FANTANA said:
There are over 7,500 cars available on donedeal for 3k or less.
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FANTANA said:
There’s a lot to be said for an older estate car when doing up a house,
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Only 201 estate cars on donedeal for <€3k less than 15 years old, only 51 of those in Dublin. A quick scroll through shows some taxis for €250 which is actually the weekly price to rent them, some listed as €1 or €0 rather than showing POA, some that are missing the last couple of zeros off the price and the correct higher price in the description (€74 shown as the price but €7.4k being shown in the description). I think our young sparks will struggle to find this cheap car that will reliably get him to work but also be a weekend workhorse for house renovations.
 
What does the 100 euros each actually include. Does it include personal expenses as clothing, hairdresser, gym membership...as well as going out and traveling? If it's just going out and travel, 10k a year seems a bit excessive if the goal short term is to save for a mortgage.
C.R.E.A.M said:
Our monthly out goings from January is roughly between 1000-1200 not including what we spend on ourselves we think 80-100 each a week is reasonable
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Is that the plan or what you are doing? With these expenses, the savings should amount to nearly 4k a month. However, you speak about saving 1 k each a month.
 
I think 80-100 a week is reasonable, the odd cup of coffee or drink with friends is essential IMO. You’re young and should be able to have holidays and nights out. When you are living together and doing up a place it’ll be different but you won’t mind so much.

I guess you are also paying rent/utilities at your respective homes too. So you’ll have that freed up when you move.

Hopefully your careers will progress and earnings likewise.
 
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