'It shouldn't be this hard surely to have a home' - Manorhamilton resident speaks out

A couple who had to leave their rented accommodation struggled for nine months before finding another home to rent in Manorhamilton, Leitrim, and are currently hoping to purchase their own home through a county council scheme.

Talking to the Leitrim Observer, the Manorhamilton native said that finding a house to rent was incredibly different and purchasing a home is also proving very challenging. 

Daniel (whose name has been changed) said that he and his partner left the West and moved to Dublin as "that was the only place we could get work. We lived there for a few years and then the rent prices were flying up."

The couple welcomed a baby and decided that they wanted to move closer to their family. "My partner is from the West and I'm from here so we decided to try and find something. We had friends that were moving out of a house as they had just bought something and they told us the property was coming up for rent. That was in 2022 and you couldn't find anything for love nor money at that time. The man we were renting from was an absolute gent and really did look after us as tenants, I have to say."

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He continued: "We had always known that houses prices were going up around us and had been hoping we might find a place to buy but when we came back, I think we should have acted a bit quicker maybe. We had some money in an account and thought we could afford something but we waited a bit and then the house prices started going crazy and couldn't afford to buy anything. Just as we realised that, around 2024, we started into the process of applying for a county council grant, which we are still in the process of because it's quite difficult."

Daniel said they were unable to get a mortgage as they both have fluctuating incomes. "A lot of our friends relate to this and we have this conversation regularly over coffee and in the pub."

The pair were given nine months notice before they had to vacant the house but still struggled to find a house. "It took us the full nine months to find a place to live. I know others who have been looking for somewhere for 12 months and still haven't found anything and are past the notice period."

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He said they had "every ear on the ground working for us in Manorhamilton" and still struggled to find a home. "We really wanted to stay here because our daughter is turning school-age and is enrolled in the school. It's a lovely community and we're really happy to be part of it. We are quite involved in the community here so we're quite active in the area. Leaving here and trying to rebuild that again? We've done enough moving at this point, I feel."

He said that only through a connection with an auctioneer, the family finally secured a new place to live. "A person who had bought a rental house came in and said that they wanted to lease a house but didn't want to put it on any of the websites and asked if there was anyone on a list and he recommended us. We got it through that and I don't think we would have been able to find a house otherwise."

The couple are now paying double the rent they were paying in their former residence. "That's the going rate here; that's the difference in just three years. It was unheard of to charge over €1000 a month in rent three years ago and now it's the standard. I would actually say our rent is kind of low as rents go in this area. We have to find a way to make up that extra rent and that's been difficult. We're still trying to keep money for the mortgage and to be honest, that's non-existent anymore - it's going down not up which is not through any fault of our own as we are still earning."

He said that the cost of living also comes into play when trying to save money for a house. "Then you have bills, fuel, etc.; it all adds up."

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Daniel said that the couple looked into applying for the Vacant Property Refurbishment Grant which provides up to €70,000 but said that "the money doesn't go too far not only because building materials have gone  up but because the price of labour has also gone up so much. We wanted to do a lot of the work ourselves but you can't do that with the grant."

They are now in the process of apply for the Local Authority Home Loan which he said has been "quite an ordeal; whenever we go back with documents, we end up leaving with more documents."

He stressed: "It shouldn't be this hard surely to have a home. We look at a lot of the sales that are happening around here and prices have gone up so much. Sometimes, we look at these houses that just sold a year and a half ago and they are still sitting empty and you think 'Who is buying these houses?' There are plenty of people here who'd love to be buying houses and sometimes I wonder if they are just second homes from people, which is very upsetting for people who'd love to buy here."