Nerdie Investing In Ireland

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Buying a property: renegotiating after the inspection

In this post I want to share some tips about renegotiating the offer on the property after receiving the results of the survey (inspection) and valuation. I am not an expert negotiator and there are many real estate investors that are more experienced than me, but there isn't much content about it. A post like this in the past would be a great help for me. The advice here is based on my recent purchase of a rental property in Dublin in which both the survey and the valuation showed some problems. I successfully used their results to lower the price of the property even though the market at the time was very hot. Photo by Sora Shimazaki from Pexels What to expect from renegotiating after the survey When you buy a property , after the seller accepts your offer you enter the ‘Sale agreed’ phase and you should quickly get the valuation and survey scheduled. Before you officially sign the contracts you can still walk away or renegotiate if you are not happy with the results of the s

Buying a rental property in Ireland through the pandemic: sale agreed to keys in hand

My partner and I managed to buy a rental property with a Buy To Let mortgage in Dublin, Ireland during the Covid-19 pandemic. It took ages though, just going from sales agreed to keys in the hand took over 6 months. In this post I want to describe how the process looked like for us after the seller accepted our offer. You can find a very good article about how this process generally works at citizensinformation website . I would recommend reading that before you bid on the properties. In this post, I won’t talk about the exact numbers on this deal, I have made a youtube video about it back in November that you can see here . Closing process and the required team To get your offer accepted when you are buying with debt you need to have a mortgage pre-approval, which tells the seller that you are likely to get a mortgage. When I was buying my primary residence in Dublin, we used AIB which had good rates and had an office very close to work. However, the process of dealing with the bank

What I spend money on - 3 month review

In this post I will review three months of my spending, January to March 2021. I didn’t have any major expenses during these months such as medical bills, car insurance or home repairs, so I know that I should not be extrapolating the three month average to the whole year. I will not share my earnings in this post, but I have to admit that I am very well paid and I share my expenses with my partner, we have no kids. And even though I could spend much more I live well below my means. Depending on your budget and earnings my spending can look to you like a lot or like a little. 10 years ago, as a student, I used to live for about 300 euro a month which barely covered my housing (in a shared room in a subsidized dorm in a cheaper country) and food. Compared to that, my spending now feels extravagant. On the other hand I think I’m much cheaper than lots of people in my earning bracket, and my partner occasionally calls me a scrooge. I live in Dublin in Ireland which is an expensive city an

Should you read Rich Dad, Poor Dad?

If you, like me, listen to real estate or financial independence related podcasts, you probably have heard people mentioning Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki as their favorite Real Estate related book. There is even a person who counted it! In about 300 episodes of the Bigger Pockets Real Estate podcast, the guests mentioned it 135 times ( source ) ! So, should you read it then? If so many people recommend it, it can’t be a bad book, right? Well, until recently I didn’t have an opinion, but this month I finally read that book and I can report back to you. It was a quick and exciting read, but I wouldn’t recommend it. Here is why: Rich Dad, Poor Dad makes an Investor lifestyle look very appealing and a regular job very unattractive, but it doesn't present a fair perspective The book encourages risky investment types and contains dangerous advice There are some good tidbits that can point you in the right direction, but overall provides little practical value. If you want to act

My reasons to pursue financial independence

I have been generally interested in the idea of passive income and investing for a very long time and I have been saving money since I can remember. But I haven’t really done much investing until 2018, when I stumbled upon Mr Money mustache and ideas of Financial Independence Retire Early (FIRE). I got hooked up on the idea and started my FIRE journey. The recipe for FIRE is simple, but it’s not necessarily easy! Save and invest well Cut your expenses - this will decrease how money you will need to maintain your lifestyle and help with the saving rate Amass enough of investments that working will become optional. A typical recommended amount is about 25 times your yearly spending. You can read more about the math behind it here . So why did I get hooked and committed to be on this difficult path of a miser? "Miser: a person who hoards wealth and spends as little money as possible." source Here are my main motivations: Strong need for financial security A desire for freedom

How to pick your investing strategy based on risk and returns

How you should invest depends on your situation in life. If you are young and don't need the money in the next 30 years you should be investing differently compared to if you are saving for a house down payment in 2 years or if you are planning to retire soon. The two most important factors to consider are the risk and the return. Another thing to consider is the liquidity of the investment, but let's assume in this post that we are only investing in liquid assets (ones that are easy to sell). Ideally, everyone would like the highest return with no risk. However, the risk free investments typically have very small yields and will give you poor returns. See an example of Irish bonds , the rates are terrible, but the risk is very small if the inflation is low. The rates on the savings accounts are similarly poor. There is one exception to that, which is paying off debt. Some people say "why should I pay off my debt, while I can make xx% in the stock market". Paying off