[darraghenright]

Yeah, this sounds like a classic Irish solution. It's hard to see any light at the end of the tunnel here between the shortfall, cost and availability of labour and materials, and so on. To paraphrase what someone once said on this site — housing as an investment or a human right, choose one.

I bought a house in Cork city six years ago, paid more than I hoped because it's quite the fixer upper — we've done almost nothing and "the market" suggests that its value has increased about 50% since. Which is meaningless to me but means a lot to many people I know who can no longer afford a buy a home.

[CalRobert]

I somehow managed to lose money because I'm an idiot. I bought a thatched house in Offaly in 2019. Then I lost insurance (like many other thatched home owners in Ireland since the last insurer stopped writing policies) and the house became uninsurable and unmortgageable. Took a huge loss on it and moved to the Netherlands, where it's still possible to get insurance on thatched homes (though I sure as hell will never have one again).

Good riddance.

[anal_reactor]

I'm literally buying an overpriced apartment in the Netherlands right now because I know that the population is only going to keep growing while housing supply will stay limited, so if I keep it 20 years and sell then, I'm going to be fucking rich and I'll just retire to a small town in a poor country with fast internet. The fact that I'm massively overpaying right now doesn't matter.

[rightbyte]

Do I read you correctly, in that the bank in effect foreclosed your home due to a policy change since it had a straw roof?

[CalRobert]

No, I bought the place cash, but it meant any subsequent buyers couldn't get a mortgage. What you're describing has in fact been a huge problem for other people with thatched roofs in Ireland.