A couple who relocated from Dublin to Berlin have said the housing situation in both cities is “night and day” as the “interminable” Irish housing crisis rumbles on.
Daryl O’Leary (37) and his wife Maiara dos Santos Carvalho (35) left Dublin in July 2022 after their search for a home became increasingly difficult.
The couple were living in a 38sq m (409sq ft) one-bed apartment on Dublin’s Amiens Street where they were paying a monthly rent of €1,260. Mr O’Leary worked as a graphic designer and Ms dos Santos Carvalho was a sales manager with a tech company.
While the introduction of the eviction ban and rent pressure zones during the Covid-19 pandemic protected them in their apartment, they found it impossible to move to a bigger place or buy a home of their own.
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“If we wanted to rent somewhere new, maybe a bit bigger or in a nicer area, everything was over €2,000 [a month],” he said.
They decided to save their money and put it towards buying a home and attended several viewings and put bids on a few properties.
“We put a bid on a place in Sandyford, in a digital auction during Covid, but every time we refreshed the thing, it just kept jumping. We ended up just having a bottle of wine and watching it, thinking ‘this is nuts’,” Mr O’Leary said.
“People were throwing €5,000, €10,000 at it like it was just 10 quid – it was crazy,” Ms dos Santos Carvalho added.
The property ended up selling for €100,000 more than the asking price, at which point the pair began to weigh up whether it was worth continuing their search.
After a trial period living in Greece while working remotely during the pandemic, they began to explore options in central Europe and settled on Berlin.
“Daryl has a good level of German, we had both been to Berlin separately and loved it,” Ms dos Santos Carvalho said.
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“We started looking for jobs and then I got an offer that I couldn’t resist – they paid for relocation too.”
The couple moved to Berlin in July 2022, initially to a newly built two-bedroom 95sq m (1,023sq ft) apartment in a central area of the city at a rent of €1,700 a month.
They bought a two-bed apartment in the central Moabit neighbourhood for €514,000 after six months of looking.
“We’re coming up on three years here now and frankly couldn’t be happier,” Mr O’Leary said. “The contrast between the costs, housing quality, availability, dealing with landlords alongside the general quality of life, healthcare between here and Ireland is honestly, night and day.”
“When we were thinking about buying our house in Ireland, everything seemed to work against us,” Ms dos Santos Carvalho added. “It really didn’t feel like we were both working and earning good salaries, because I still felt like we were behind. It really didn’t matter what we did.”
