A what or a what? A gaff is Dub slang for a house. "Deadly party at Steve-o's gaff last night!" And a scratcher? That's a bed. "Met me this fine bird! Got her up to the scratcher."
Well, to find yerself a gaff and a scratcher in Dublin can be no small thing. With the Celtic Tiger boom, there's a lot more people in Dublin, with a lot more cash. Housing prices have shot way up.
If you're a lucky sonofabitch, brought over to the Dublin office by your company, chances are you can relax. The HR department for most multinationals will help line up an apartment and other details for you. Just one word of advice: think COMMUTING.
Dublin can be a nightmare to get around in. These roads were never designed for the volume of traffic that's currently crammed onto them. So be very wary if they try to sell you, "Oh, it's a brand new LUXURY apartment complex, just three miles from your office as the crow flies---!" Flying crows? Dog's dinner, is more likely. Inquire as to buses, DART lines (Dublin Area Rapid Transit). And also find out exactly what they mean by 'luxury.' Every halfway modern dive is listed as 'luxury' or 'luxurious,' and priced accordingly.
For the rest of us, who arrive in Dublin with dreams and determination rather than PA's to make all our calls for us, the quest fer a place to rest our weary head can be a bit more daunting.
First things first: get yerself a job. No one will rent to you unless you are employed. If need be, arrange a Bed & Breakfast room by the week, and get out there pounding the streets. In the current economy, you're likely to have the job you want within a few weeks. That done, try to find accommodation close by.
Every night in the Evening Herald, there are pages and pages of adverts for rooms to let. Accommodation sharing is big in Dublin: there'll be a room going spare in a house or an apartment, and so the residents will put an ad in the paper, invite in a bunch of people and pick the one they like best. Sharing like this is handy--- no worries about securing a lease or a mortgage, price somewhere around £50 a week, great way to meet other people. When it works out, it can be a ready-made little community of people who share the same situation and interests. Two of the folks I met thru ads in the paper like this are still great friends, though I'm more than two years in house of my own, now.
To check out some accommodation sharing online, check out the loadza and daft sites. One word of forewarning, though: things are very much "Don't call us, we'll call you" in Dublin. Don't rely on moving into a place, just because the first meeting went great. Only the winner gets the call. All other comers are out beating the street again, the next night.
The procedure's different than in the US, if you want to lease an apartment yourself. In the US, there'll be an apartment building with a 'Units Available' sign posted out front. The prospective applicant walks in, scopes the joint out, then inquires at the manager's office. Not so in Dublin: getting an apartment is the same as getting a house. Apartments are bought just like houses, and then some people rent theirs out at a tidy little profit. Wander around Dublin, looking for a nice building in the area ye desire. With luck, there'll be a little auctioneer's sign outside. Auctioneers, also called estate agents, handle the sale and rental of all property in Ireland. Call the number displayed, and prepare to hand over bank records, statements of income, and character references. The damage will be somewhere around £1000.00 a month, in Dublin, for a one-year lease on a two-bedroom apartment. Flats in a house, farther from city centre, will be somewhat less expensive.
One thing is guaranteed, tho: the price will go up at the end of that year. Housing costs have been rising at about 15% per year, since the economy started booming. Lots of people are ecstatic about this: gaffs they bought for £35,000 are now selling for £180,000. Wha-hoo! These lucky bastards aside, it's close to impossible for the first-time homebuyer to get into the market. Second-hand starter homes, in dog-rough parts of Dublin, will set the unlucky couple back at least £100,000. Mortgage brokers typically allow a loan of twice the higher earner's salary plus one-time the lower earner's salary--- so unless the both of you are on megabucks, or have a long-lost aunt who kicks the bucket leaving you a windfall fortune, you're out of luck.
In practice, it's not that impossible. Carmel and I acquired our nice little bungalow without too much divine intervention. At the sake of descending into cliché: where there's a will, there's a way. And the efforts are worth it. Dublin's a great place to live.
Guide Index Red words? Check the Dub Glossary!