World’s best tenants

IF renting is the new buying, meet a couple who may well qualify as Ireland’s best tenants – and who were never really tempted to buy.

For a duo who swim against the prevailing tide, maybe it is appropriate that Michael Haberbosch and Monika Hary ended up metaphorically pitching their tent, by the sea, in Ireland, at Fountainstown, in a 1930s-bult Swedish kit house. Which, by the way, they are more than happy to rent, and yet to invest time and money into.

When Irish Examiner Property first met up with this warm-hearted German couple, it was around 1996 as they opened their design-grounded furniture and high-end household goods shop Mimo in Cork city. They had the shop up and running – but were living in a small VW camper van that had been their home for several years after they set off on a world tour, and stopped short in Cork.