How to find a rental
When moving abroad, it can be daunting and overwhelming. You might only focus on one aspect of it, and forget the rest. But it is important to not forget a major aspect of moving abroad, the new house.
So how do you find a new house when moving to Ireland?
When we were preparing to move to Ireland, we first mainly focused on getting everything wrapped up in the Netherlands. You can read about how we emigrated from the Netherlands if you want. Especially at the start of this whole process, we really only focussed on getting a house that we could rent. We wanted to make sure that our stuff and our daughters would have a roof to stay under. Because when moving to another country, including Ireland, finding a home is rather important.
Finding a home
First, I tried to find a home for our family. Now that seems simple right? Unfortunately it was everything but simple. The Irish rental market is very different than the rental market in the Netherlands. And it took me quite some time to adjust to it and get better at getting results.
The main difference is that where the Dutch rental market is mainly run by big corporations, that require you to get on a waiting list. The Irish rental market is mainly composed of smaller companies that own a handful of homes. And individual families that own a second home that they rent out. And there are no waiting lists, which means that unlike in the Netherlands, you don’t have to wait 5 years to be eligible for a house.
The Irish rental market feels at least like something you can have control over. Since it is a combination of first come, first serve, and an optimal tenant appearance. Now although this poses their own problems, of which there are many, it also means you can be an active part in finding a house.
If you want to search for homes in Ireland yourself, then I highly recommend using daft. Since it is the biggest and most widely used website for this purpose.
Hiring someone to find your home
Unfortunately, like I already said there are some problems with this way of finding tenants. Because in our case, since we lived abroad and couldn’t attend the viewings we tended to be immediately crossed off of their list.
Which eventually, led us to hire a lovely lady who ran a business finding homes for people that were new to Ireland. She would go to viewings for us and give the landlords our details and explain that we would be good tenants. Eventually, she found us a lovely home close to my husband’s office and in a wonderful school district.
If you want to contact this lovely lady who was so very helpful during our move, then you can find her contact details at settle in.
RTB
The RTB is the residential tenancies board, it is there to protect landlords and tenants alike. As a last resort, it can help to resolve issues if any arise, and when you move into a home, you will need to be registered there.
But they are not just for disputes, they also give tips and example forms that you might need if you’re going to rent a property. Including fire safety and minimum standards that you can expect in a house. They do state that if there are any issues that you should first try and resolve it with your landlords, and if that fails, you can contact the RTB.
For more info, you can visit the RTB website.
Are you planning on moving to Ireland and finding a home for yourself?
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