A documentary exploring the unpredictability of the Irish property market as experienced by the residents of one iconic Dublin road airs on RTÉ One tonight.
Our Lives in Property: Oxmantown Road follows the ups and downs of Ireland’s property market as experienced by the residents of the picturesque red-bricked terraced houses that make up Oxmantown Road in Stoneybatter on the city’s northside.
The documentary hears from people from all walks of life including Grace Scott (92) who has been living on Oxmantown Road as a renter for 88 years.
Grace Scott has lived on Oxmantown Road nearly her entire life.
She reminisces about missing out on a bargain as her mother, and subsequently, herself chose not to buy their home even as they saw prices rise.
“I tried to buy one and they wanted £25,000 from me. I said £25,000 no way! I’d buy it now when you realise but back then I thought that was shocking – 25,000!” she says.
This is a street where five years ago you could buy a house for €140,000 but where prices now regularly top out at or around €400,000.
The first house offered for sale on Oxmantown Road sold in 1961 for £800 – about twice the average industrial wage. To buy a home on the street now requires almost ten times the average industrial wage.
The Stone family who are residents on Oxmantown Road.
For renters, the situation is just as bad with average rents rising from €950 monthly in 2010 to around €1,700 a month this year.
We also hear from the Stone family, who grew up on the road and once had a lemur monkey for a pet but are now saying goodbye as their late father and uncle’s houses go on the market.
Conor Pope and Sonia Harris bought a property on the Dublin street in the late 90s.
Conor Pope and Sonia Harris thought they had paid a horrific price when they bought in 1999 for £127,000 only to see prices rise exponentially in the intervening years.
The houses along the road have changed hands thousands of times in the last 100 years with each new resident bringing their own unique story.
Our Lives in Property: Oxmantown Road, tonight, RTÉ One at 9.35pm.
