First-time buyer fears: I'm doing everything right — but will it ever be enough to buy a home?

Imasha Costa shares the emotional and financial toll of trying to buy a home in Cork during Ireland’s housing crisis

Imasha Costa shares a rented apartment with two other people. Picture: Larry Cummins

Eight months ago, I had given up on the idea that one day I could own a home. I put my foot down and told myself that no matter what I tried, I could not buy something I could call my own.

I saw friends struggling to save for a deposit while living at home. My bills kept going up, and my wages did not keep up with the increasing inflation.

I have lived in rented accommodation my entire life. We moved homes at least three times during my childhood, until I reached 18. I turned 19, I moved to Ireland — and I found myself moving room to room in dilapidated, mouldy student accommodation in Cork City before I found my current home, which is a rented apartment that I share with two other people.

I’ve lived in apartments my whole life, and purchasing an apartment in a multi-storied building with no vast space for roaming and being confined to the four walls with hundreds of others is not what I want.

It has always been my dream to own a home. To have a large back garden, where the dogs and hens could run freely as we sat on the patio, snuggled under blankets with cups of tea, and watched the sunset. I wanted a cosy cottage full of flowers, trees, and shrubs. A house with a few bedrooms but enough space for a library, and or a conservatory.

My dream home is just a dream.

A few months ago, a number of my friends got evicted, one after the other within the same four weeks. I saw my life flash before my eyes, wondering what would happen if I lost my current home.

I do not have the privilege of moving home and living with my family because they do not live in Ireland.

It was then that my partner and I decided that we would start saving for a house. We have a two-year plan to save double of what we need for a deposit. It looks promising, but every time we look at the plan, we wonder, can we actually do this?

Every few months, we see the daft housing reports come out. The price of a new build has gone up yet again, or the price of someone selling their former home is nowhere near our budget.

I wonder if this is what we will have to fight for every single time? Will we have to rush early in the morning to view a set of affordable new builds, like thousands of others, or will we have to settle for a house that is being sold for more than what it should be bought for?

I turn 25 this year, and here I am fighting with my budget every single month to save some 30% of my salary, so that I could finally find security in a home that is outright mine and my partner’s.

I should be allowing myself to enjoy more years of rented life in the city, enjoy going out, going on holidays, but the fear of potentially not having a secure home has me pushing myself into extreme saving mode.

I cannot get a mortgage on my own, and even if I did, there would be no way it would cover 90%, which is needed for a house in Cork City.

My partner cannot get a mortgage on his own either. So we have decided to do this together. This gives us a better chance of finding our “dream” home. It gives us more leeway in looking at homes in the already dwindling market, and maybe gives us a bit of hope.

Our budget is between €300,000 and €325,000. That is the highest we are able to go. By the time I turn 27, in July 2027, we hope that we can purchase our home, where we can spend our lives together.

But what I see in the market right now makes me question if this is the best that is out there. In two years, will it get better?

Two years is a long while away, and who knows what costs will look like then. Will it cost more to live? Will the deposit we secure be enough? Will more setbacks take us out of the running for buying a home?