We’re ready to downsize, but just can’t find a suitable home

You’ve probably noticed we have an issue in this country with houses, or the lack of them, I should say.

It’s particularly difficult for those in the younger age group who are looking to move out of the family home and set up their own place. But they’re not the only ones affected.

Lots of people with families living in small houses are looking for bigger houses, and many people in the older age group are looking to downsize to smaller houses, but moving anywhere at the moment is not easy.

Not only is there a housing shortage, but there’s also a shortage of tradesmen to build them or extend them, because so many have emigrated to Australia and elsewhere for a better life.

They’re busy building houses in other countries, and when they get sick, they are looked after by Irish nurses and doctors because so many of them have emigrated as well.

Irish people have left in their droves for a variety of reasons, such as improved pay and conditions and better quality of life. Hard to blame them.

Now, the Irish Government wants them to come home to build houses and look after the sick here - but they’re not budging.

And why would they? They’re better off where they are with a quality of life they could only dream of here.

And, even if they wanted to come home, they couldn’,t unless they’d be prepared to move back in with their parents. Alternatively, they could spend all their income on rent - if they could even find a property.

Politicians here have been telling us over the years that they are working on a plan to build more homes and to make vacant properties more available for purchase. But are they?

My mother died eight years ago and, for reasons I still can’t get my head around, her home, which is a small mid-terrace house, has been bogged down in a probate issue since then.

And I’m not the only one confused by this, because it has left several solicitors scratching their heads too.

There is a guy waiting in the wings to do it up and make a family home for himself and his partner.

Over the years, that job has become larger and more expensive because the property has been lying idle for so long and it has deteriorated. It has devalued significantly as well.

The property was left to my brother and nobody else has any interest in it. Nobody has any entitlement to it either, so there is nothing to contest. It is simply a probate issue that has been costly to resolve.

Apart from the financial implications and the inconvenience of dealing with this issue for the last eight years, it has also prevented another family from having a home, and I can’t help wondering how many more properties are needlessly tied up in bureaucratic red tape for the want of some common sense.

The subject of downsizing has been an ongoing topic of conversation in our house for years now.

As soon as our son flees the nest, our current home will be just too big for the two of us, so it makes sense for many reasons to move to a smaller place.

The maintenance here alone is becoming an issue as both of us have outgrown the spring chicken tag. We are now in our sixties and have all the associated aches and pains that come with aging.

We might be young in our heads, but our frames remind us daily that physical labour is more of a challenge than it once was.

Gardening was never a pleasure for me, but I got on with it out of necessity. Now, before I cut the grass, I notify the Mater Hospital in advance just to be on the safe side!

Emptying the grass collector is an exertion I could do without, and I’m barred from climbing on anything higher than a foot stool.

So, we need to move somewhere smaller with minimum maintenance. An apartment would be fine, provided it was in the right area because we value our peace and quiet.

We haven’t seen any options on the market that suit our requirements. We want smaller, but not tiny either, and it would be nice to be able to walk into town without too much difficulty.

Wherever we end up, it’s unlikely we’ll get a place as quiet as where we are now.

Neighbours are important too, and again we’ve been spoiled over the years. The neighbours we’ve had to date are a difficult act to follow, but before we worry about who lives next door, we have to find a door.

We don’t want to get a place that needs to be renovated. We’re done with that, and you can’t do much work from a foot stool anyway.

We want somewhere that’s ready to move into, but how long will we have to wait?

The Programme for Government commits to delivering more than 300,000 houses between 2025 and the end of 2030, an average of over 50,000 per annum. Delivery over the period will need to rise incrementally to 60,000 homes per year by 2030

However, we constantly hear of targets set and targets missed, with blame laid at the feet of planners, bankers or developers, but we still don’t have houses.

At this rate, we could still be searching the property market into our eighties.

Another option is to move abroad permanently.

We currently spend a lot of our time in Cyprus anyway and I would have no problem making a full-time home there. With the outdoor living style and the warm climate, it wouldn’t be hard to persuade me.

They’d only need to build 49,999 houses this year then.