The price is the biggest number, but it isn't the only one. Budget for these before you bid, because your limit is what you can fund once they're paid.
The deposit
- First-time buyers borrowing from a bank usually need at least 10% of the price; other buyers usually need 20%. See first-time buyer schemes for help with it.
- Part of it goes early: a booking deposit to the agent when your bid is accepted, often a few thousand euro, refundable until contracts are signed. The rest is paid when you sign contracts and at closing. See what happens after sale agreed.
Stamp duty
1% of the price up to €1,000,000, more above it, paid by your solicitor at closing. On a €450,000 home that's €4,500. See stamp duty on a house in Ireland for the rates and worked examples, or the stamp duty calculator.
Legal fees
Your solicitor checks the title, the contracts and the planning, and handles the money at closing. Fees are quoted as a flat fee or a percentage, plus VAT and outlays (searches, registration with the Land Registry). Get two or three written quotes before sale agreed, so you can instruct one the day your bid is accepted.
Survey
A structural survey tells you what's wrong with the house before you're bound to it. You pay for it yourself, after sale agreed and before you sign. It's money well spent on an older house, and it can give you grounds to renegotiate.
Mortgage valuation
Your lender sends a valuer to confirm the house is worth what you're borrowing against. There's usually a fee. If the valuation comes in under the price, the gap comes out of your savings, so bid with the likely sale price in mind: check what a house is likely to sell for.
Insurance
- Home insurance from the day the sale closes; lenders require buildings cover.
- Mortgage protection (life cover for the loan), which lenders also require in most cases.
Moving in
Removals, connecting utilities and broadband, and whatever the house needs on day one. Keep something back: most houses need more than you expect in the first year.
Put it together before you bid
Add the deposit, stamp duty on your likely final price (not the asking price), legal fees, the survey and a margin. To see it worked out from your income and savings, and which homes for sale are likely to sell within it, use how much can I borrow. In much of the country homes sell over asking, so check what homes near you sold for against their asking price before you set your limit, and read how much over asking to bid.