A long time ago, there was a technique to getting rented accommodation in Dublin. At midday, you’d go to the offices of the Irish Press on Burgh Quay, and wait. Eventually, someone would emerge carrying a pile of that day’s Evening Press. You’d grab a copy, sprint up to D’Olier Street and jump on the number 15 bus. Once on board, you’d scan the To Let pages, consult your map of the Dublin 6 area, and decide which property to head to first.
The aim was to arrive before anyone else. In those days, flats were mostly rented out on a first-come, first-served basis. Mostly: there was always the occasional landlord who, once they’d had a look at you, suddenly remembered that they’d let the place out to their cousin. Some landlords would only rent to women. Many wouldn’t rent to unmarried couples. It was OK that a lot of these flats were tiny, dark and sometimes filthy. But it was not OK that they might be the venue for pre-marital sex.
The technique didn’t always work, but it did most of the time. Which is why, perhaps foolishly, I volunteered to find a place for Daughter Number One and her boyfriend in advance of their return from London.
How little things have changed. There’s no more Evening Press. The Sex Police have disbanded, but speed is still imperative, and there is still that faint whiff of moralism.
From my consultations with others more familiar with the contemporary process, this is what I’ve learned so far: go on your website of choice and stay on it. Keep refreshing the page until a new property appears. If it’s the sort of thing you’re looking for, send the email enquiry straight away. (Landlords and estate agents won’t accept phone calls.) The key number seems to be the amount of page views. If, say, there are 20 page views, that means 20 people have already looked at it and presumably also sent an email: you’re number 21 in the queue. You’ll get an email confirming your enquiry but you won’t be called to a physical viewing.
I’ve been doing this for a few weeks now, and the rate that the page views increase is astonishing. It goes up in tens within seconds. Within an hour, it can be hundreds. I can’t be sure, of course, but it’s unlikely that the landlord reads every enquiry. Probably the first 10.
And the wording of those emails also seems to be crucial. The prospective tenants have to present themselves as soporifically boring: quiet professionals who only want to work, clean the apartment and spend the rest of their time with their equally boring families who live nearby.
The generation mostly taking the hit from the housing crisis is the generation blithely depicted as snowflakey and entitled: too delicate to deal with the <a href='javascript:window.parent.actionEventData({$contentId:"7.1213540", $action:"view", $target:"work"})' polopoly:contentid="7.1213540" polopoly:searchtag="tag_organisation">Real World</a>
I’m not suggesting for a moment that landlords are festering balls of prejudice, but the process demands that you must presume that they are. “Quiet professionals” is code for: we are middle class. We are not in receipt of any social welfare payments. We have no issues. If you get into that top 10 and are called for a physical viewing, the way you dress and deport yourself must also transmit that message. The property isn’t really being inspected. It’s the tenants.
So far, my technique hasn't yielded any results. So we're resorting to platitudes: it will be fine. Just a matter of time. Across Ireland, the families of thousands of other people in the same situation are saying exactly the same thing.
The generation mostly taking the hit from the housing crisis is the generation blithely depicted as snowflakey and entitled: too delicate to deal with the Real World. Still living at home because they are too lazy to move out.
There’s nowhere to move out to. When I would dash on to the number 15 bus, at least I knew there would always be places available to look at. It’s hard to stand on your own two feet when the legs keep getting cut from underneath you.