Eleanor Tiernan: Are takeaway coffees really keeping us off the property ladder?

Of all the bad financial decisions I made, it was the double espresso that really killed me

Eleanor Tiernan: "Property deals until they are done are so very fragile and it seems very likely that I’ll have my heart broken at least once by this process."

I read an article this week about how millennials will never be able to afford property as long as they continue to spoil themselves with daily takeaway coffees. Like all the others I’ve read, it made me spit out my double shot of espresso with embarrassment. I’m a coffee fiend, and I am still renting.

The problem with people like me though, is that we don’t have the same pitiable position as the millennials. Unlike them, we can’t even blame the boomer generation for hoarding all the wealth at the top. Because my people are not millennials. I am of a class of human called Generation X.

Generation X are those of us who were born between the mid 1960’s and the late 1970’s. We grew up on a diet of Findus Crispy Pancakes and Angel Delight. It was a time that pre-dated electric windows in cars nobody needed to remember people’s phone numbers. When Ghostbusters came out, it was a perfect movie for us because we were young enough to enjoy the shenanigans but also old enough to get Bill Murray’s dirty jokes. Having a childhood before helicopter parenting became a thing is something I would definitely recommend.

We came of age at a unique time in Ireland too. Chronic unemployment in the 1980’s cast a long shadow over us. In the early part of my final year at university in 1997, the top engineering firms came to our class and interviewed to find the most talented graduate - so they could be fast-tracked to success in their organisation. Just one person was chosen, the implication being that the rest of us would soon pay a price for our mediocrity.

However, by the time the final papers were handed in, something had changed. The jobs market was being boosted by a new development called the Celtic Tiger. Everyone in my class got jobs straight out of college. Not just jobs, but company cars and laptops too. I moved to Dublin and took up a job with a consultant engineering firm. I remember at the time my mother advised me to use the money I was earning wisely. It landed on deaf ears. What did she know, I thought? She’s the one who’s been telling me for years that the economy would tank, and look at me now. I’m going to Copper Face Jacks and booking cheap skiing holidays to Andorra.

My property potential culminated when a government financial scheme came to fruition. The SSIA’s , which many people used to form part of their house deposit, I spent on re-training as an actor. And another property opportunity bites the dust.

Now two decades later, property is on my mind all the time. That’s not to say that I regret my life choices but there is an underlying anxiety to renting that has grown more palpable over the years.

My peers all put down roots at home but I find myself sharing rented properties with the millennials who came up after me. As a generation, I admire them greatly. They question authority and systemic injustice in a way we never did. I daren’t tell them there was a window during my working life when buying property was possible but I put it off because I valued other things like creative fulfilment and general craic more highly.

There is some forward momentum though. In the past few weeks, made possible by the generosity of my parents, I’ve been able to start looking for my own corner of the world to buy. In the blink of an eye, my life is all alerts from websites when flats in the area I’m interested in come up.

I’m on Google Street View trying to use the images captured to make an assessment of the properties. I’m being careful of my credit rating. I’m using the word “mortgageable” in sentences like it’s something I’ve always known. It all feels oh so very far away from the days of Copper Face Jacks.

I’m not sure if it will even come to anything. I feel hope but hope scares me too. The more I invest in the search, the more I’m realising how much and how long I’ve wanted a home for. Property deals until they are done are so very fragile and it seems very likely that I’ll have my heart broken at least once by this process.

It’s all I can do to try and get some craic out of the situation with the people I meet along the way. “First Time Buyer?” the estate agents tentatively ask, fearful of causing offense. “Of a property? Yes!” I say before holding up the takeaway coffee in my hand “But of these? I have bought many”.