Finding an apartment in Dublin - mission (im)possible

Having a place to stay is most likely the most important thing on your mind before the move. I suppose you already know that apartment hunting is really, really hard in Dublin - those people on Reddit and media coverage are not exaggerating at all.

But there is some good news. If you are relocating for a job you already got, and if that job is in tech industry, your future employer will almost surely arrange some kind of relocation services for you. Read carefully those mails because hopefully your relocation package does not include just a one-way ticket and shipping your goods but also relocation services here in Dublin. This was the case in my relocation and I can not emphasise enough how important that was. My relocation consultant, who was a woman in her late forties/early fifties, was extremely helpful and she said to me point blank that for the next few weeks she is gonna be my Irish mom.

Now, why is this service so important and helpful?

First of all, Dublin faces an extreme housing supply shortage. You may have already checked daft.ie which is the main (and frankly, the only that matters) real estate listing website in Ireland. I came to Ireland aiming for a one-bedroom apartment for maximum €1,200. Back in Poland I was checking Daft regularly and finding an apartment in that range seemed feasible. That was a mistake. Daft is full of fake or long gone apartments and you can be sure almost nothing that is at least okay in that price range makes it to Daft. These apartments are there somewhere, as my example shows (I have a very spacious one-bed for €1,200) but before any respectable real estate agent puts it on Daft (risking a hundred calls within five minutes of posting it), they would contact these relocation services companies. This is beneficial to everyone - landlord/landlady knows the prospective tenant has a good, stable job with adequate pay; real estate agent does not have to deal with dozens of applicants; relocation companies provide good service and people relocating are happy.

Now, you may say you do not want to rent an apartment on your own and you are okay with sharing and there is a lot of rooms available. This is not true as well. During my apartment hunt, there was a few days even my great consultant could not find any apartment and I accepted the fact that I will be sharing - it is not that bad after all. So I reached out to about fifteen people who listed a room in a shared apartment nearby the office only to get one message back. Even if they message you back and you are invited to see the apartment, they still need to accept you first (which is actually fair if you ask me). My friend who onboarded the same time I did (a month ago) did not manage to find a room yet and he is already quite desperate.

The second important reason why relocation services in Dublin are life-saving is the fact that real estate rentals here go by local rules. I come from Poland where the entire procedure looks completely different. First of all, in Poland it is the tenant who pays the agent's fee - in Ireland it is the landlord. Secondly, if you rent a flat in Poland, all utilities are still paid by the landlord and you only pay some deposit, additional to your rent. At the end of the year (or rent agreement, if it was for less than a year), your landlord presents you real utility bills and either returns the difference between the sum of those monthly deposits and the sum of real bills or, if you used more than it was projected, asks you to cover the difference. Here in Ireland I have to contact the electricity and gas company and let them know I moved in there and they have a new client. Then they send you a bunch of letters (all Irish companies love letters), you need to pay a deposit or set up a direct debit (which is, if I understand correctly, the thing when they automatically take the amount billed from your account). In my case, it was the relocation company that informed the utilities companies and I only had to deal with the second part of this task.

The last thing they are useful for is warning you from all potential mines. I have never been in Ireland before I moved here and I do not know how some of the stuff here works. For example - hot water supply. In Poland you can get your hot water from the citywide system (there is one central location where they heat the water and produce electricity on smaller scale and then distribute it by pipes to people's apartments), an electric or gas heater (a fairly big white box which heats the water whenever you need it) or a boiler (you heat the water in the night when the electricity and gas are cheaper and it stores hot water until you use it all or it chills too much). Each of those is pretty much user-free - they just work, you do not need to worry about them. Here in Ireland, however, options are different. From what I see two most popular ones are electric showers and boilers. Electric shower is pretty much the same as the electric heater in Poland, only it is actually in the shower and heats water there only. Boilers theoretically are the same as in Poland but in reality I have zero idea how they work. There is this strange adjuster where I am supposed to choose which hours is water supposed to heat but I have absolutely zero idea when it should for me to have warm water in the morning. So for now I am simply ignoring it because I have an electric shower as well and I do not need hot water in the sink. But if I were to rent an apartment without electric shower, I would have been clueless how to heat water if I had not have the relocation consultant.

And what to do if you do not have a relocation services onsite? Most importantly - secure a temporary housing for at least a month. Finding an apartment is crucial and you do not want to choose something awful just because it is the only one you can rent right now and you need to move out of temporary accommodation in two days. Do not plan based what you see on Daft - you need to be onsite and ready to go see the apartment the same day you contact the agent.

Also, it is impossible to find any accommodation without recommendations from previous landlords or at least a letter from your employer. Landlords react very well to big tech names because they know they can expect rent paid on time and - quite frankly - a little nerdy tenants. You will also need a PPS number (this is a public services number you will need to basically anything government-related in Ireland; it is best to get it done the first day), a deposit (usually the amount of one month's rent) and first month's rent. Then have some more money (approx. €500) for other expenses related to settling in. These rules apply regardless if you use relocation services or if you try to find something on your own.