‘We were in tears’: Stress of buying a home during Covid-19

After 18 months of scrimping, saving and sharing a bed with their four-year-old daughter, Kim and Mark O’Reilly had one simple goal in mind: buy a modest family home.

Yet as the Covid-19 pandemic hit Ireland, the young married couple found themselves even further from their dream than ever. After moving in with Marks’ parents in the northside suburb of Doneghmede, the young family were soon sharing the house with Mark’s two brothers.

“One of his brothers had been living in a flat, and said that he couldn’t do lockdown on his own,” Kim, who works as a senior project manager in tech, recalls. “We were all on top of each other. The only saving grace was how accommodating and understanding [Mark’s mother] was.”

The couple feature in an RTE One TV documentary Home: My Year in The Housing Crisis, to be shown at 9.30pm tonight.

Exploring the concept of ‘home’ in a volatile and vicious year for the housing industry, the documentary also delves into the impact of Covid-19.

The cameras follow a cross-section of people from all walks of Irish life as they attempt to navigate a situation where spiralling rents, soaring house prices and so-called “vulture funds” continue to wreak havoc.

Kim and Mark’s story is certainly not unusual. The young family would feel the brunt of the pandemic in other ways: after securing their dream house in Rush, they engaged solicitors and arrived at the snagging stage of negotiations. Right before Kim and Mark were due to receive the keys, their lender revealed that they had changed their conditions of lending amid widespread furloughing and unemployment. Mark, a plumber, had received the Pandemic Unemployment Payment, as his work as a plumber had been affected in the wake of to government guidelines.

“The bank got in touch to say that because Mark received the payment, we wouldn’t be able to draw down on the loan,” Kim recalls. “At that point, we were given 21 days’ notice to close the sale. We were in tears telling them, ‘we did not orchestrate the pandemic. Please don’t penalise us for it’. But they told us that these were the rules, and there were no exceptions.”

Mark’s boss, who had ‘been on the journey’ with the couple to secure a home, paid Mark out of his own pocket, meaning that he and Kim could complete the house sale.

“When we finally got in, it was like confetti was falling from the ceiling. There were a lot of tears.

“The entire episode was so stressful,” Kim admits. “The whole time was difficult on everyone. It was hard, all of us living together [in Donaghmede]. Even before the pandemic, we would get out of the weekend, or meet friends for coffee. Then, we weren’t going anywhere, except for our one walk a day. I was working from home, often from the couch.”

Elsewhere in the affecting documentary, viewers will encounter James, who has made a tent in the Phoenix Park his home since becoming homeless over a year ago.

Despite having tents destroyed on a regular basis, James reveals that he feels safer there than in some of the city’s hostels. As lockdown hit Dublin, he notes that the city has become unrecognisable.

In a bid to sidestep Ireland’s spiraling rents and insecurity in the accommodation sector, Meath musicians Rufus Coates and Jess Smith moved to Berlin. Despite enjoying the city’s cheaper rents and long-term leases, the pair have had to watch the pandemic take hold on Ireland from afar.

In Crumlin, Danielle O’Reilly and her children Mark (19) and Isabelle (11) were evicted from their rental property after a vulture fund bought it.

They now live around the corner in Danielle’s cramped childhood family home, where they have converted an upstairs bedroom into a kitchen/living space. Danielle believes she and her family are part of the “hidden homeless” not captured in statistics.

Since coming to Ireland 15 years ago, Longford residents Aneta and Jakub Safiak from Poland have gradually seen their idea of home change as they put down roots. And, working for a local estate agent, Jakub sees the property market’s unprecedented new challenges at close range.

For others, the challenges of Covid-19 have ushered in more positive changes. Earlier this year, downsizers Catherine Keating (90) and her daughter/carer Deirdre Marriott, left behind their large bungalow in Blackrock, Cork. The moved into a purpose-built council apartment more suited to their needs on the cusp of lockdown. After packing up 27 years worth of memories in their old home, the mother and daughter found themselves unexpectedly cocooning together in relatively close quarters.

Still, the pair are counting their blessings at a turbulent time.

“The community and area we are in is lovely,” notes Deirdre. “They even put out a ‘welcome’ banner for Mum when we arrived.

“Luckily, everything went very smoothly with the move, and we have everything we need for a fresh start,” adds Catherine. “I was amazed at myself that I got through it all, but then I’m a hard old bird.”