Navan or Arklow for €317.5k for FTBs

How much deposit did you put down on the house in navan?
If undecided rent in a place at least a month before buying.
Or in your case rent for a month in arklow and a month in navan.
Then things should be much clearer, especially if you pretend to yourself that you have "bought" and will be living there for years.
Its amazing that things only become clear when you have actually made a decision, despite much thought beforehand.
As house prices have peaked ,you will lose nothing with this experiment.
Personally I do not know these areas.

YEP ITS A GOOD SING FOR YOU MATE! should take all ur mate to a big FEAST including me!

Sunrock,I know where you are coming from and it's a very valid point unfortunatly as we have a schoolgoing child messing around area's renting is not practical at all for us. We are going with Navan and very happy to do so, we are not taking out 100% mortgage so we are going to be okay, been saving like mad for years so only borrowing €280k for the house so at least we are starting off with some equity in our home incase of a negative outcome. You just never know what's around the corner!!. Good point though for couples/buyers etc who can do this.

Yeah okay I can afford a few bits off McDonalds eurosaver menu with €8, might have a few cheeseburgers to go around a gang!.

Hi Headachecity,

Good luck with the move to Nyaaaavan (thats the accent your kids will get )

We recently moved from Swords to a small village between Navan and Trim. Its about 5miles from Navan town. I commute to Dublin (Fairview) every day. Heres my observations so far (for what its worth);

o Good spacious houses anywhere around Trim/Navan are easy to find.

o Commuting on the N3 can be ABSOLUTE HELL. I drove for 3 months and gave up. Now I get the bus. No time saving, 1hr 20 from Trim to city centre then 25 mins to Fairview by bus, but less stressed due to not having to drive.

o My neighbour is in for 8AM (in Rathmines), so he leaves home at 6:40AM. He says even then traffic is heavy.

o The summer is ok though. I managed 1 hour driving, but after summer its easily 2hours each way.

o I don't yet know what the commute is like in bad ice or snow, but the roads around Meath are not very good - so be warned !

o People are very friendly.

o My 7yr old son moved school - we dreaded that - but he handled it really well and has lots of new friends now. Kids are more adaptable than we give them credit for !

o You will be close to Navan, Trim towns and even Drogheda is in reach, with all the usual facilities (decent shops, secondary schools etc ...) you'd expect from towns.

o The Meath countryside is stunning in parts - around Newgrange, Tara, Trim Castle, Boyne Valley.

Maybe your hubby could drive to Drogheda, get the train and then Luas to Sandyford ?
or is that too long-winded and awkward ..?

So really the only downside is the commute.

Thanks a million redstar- ditto on dreading changing schools. Our fella loves his school but when I talked to him about possibly going to a new one in Navan he was grand, he's a very sociable kids so fingers crossed it will be okay but admittingly it's taken him the best part of 3 months to totally settle into junoir infants so I hope I don't put him into reverse by moving him. He is all excited about being in the same school as his cousin and my nephew cannot wait!.
Hubbie plans to leave Navan (johnstown area) at 6.30am to get to work for 8am in Sandyford but he might have to go earlier by the sounds of things. It's mad to think that 2 buses are easier than travelling by car.
Thanks so much for the insight it's great to have such positive info.

poor husband in all this. I'd hate to have been forced into spending min. 4hrs/day in a car and not seeing my kids awake 5 days a week. I think it was unfair of him to allow you to get your hopes up and move to Navan in the first place, but I hope you are prepapring yourself for a miserable husband after he gets home from commuting 5 days/week. Best of luck

the traffic is as bad any where after 7am...it makes more sense i think to leave earlier and take a short nap in the car, way better than stuck in the bad traffic for an hour which cna be done in 30mins?

take a short nap in the car

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Hopefully while not driving at the time

It is true, i am one of the "poor husbands" in all this. I get to see my kids for about 1hr in the evening. The biggest downside is the commute.
I'll soon be able to work from home a couple of days a week, though. Dunno if this is an option for Headachecity's, better, sorry, other half ?

unfortunatley he cannot work from home for the forseeable future anyway.
Lads, what about me the "poor wife" who would have ended up living in a town I hate, no friends or family near me, drive to from Arklow to Bray everyday to drop ds to school and dd to creche and then dump the car and get the dart into town to work, get out of work at 6pm in town, back in Bray at 7pm and then drive to Arklow??. He is more than prepared to let me do that but he is not prepared to get out of bed at 5.30/6am, on the road for 6.15/6.30 in work for 8am, then leave at 4.30pm and be home by 7pm and the kids don't go to bed till 7.30/8pm anyway. We are still at loggerheads over it eventhough yesterday he said yes to Navan, he is still going on about the commute!!! Jaysus!!

i am backing you this time mate..Navan is the only place to be!
theres loads of people travelling from Wicklow everyday...don't mean theres no traffic from that direction...he

Why dosent your husband become a stay at home dad, that would be an option. Anyone who thinks 1.5+hr commute each way is doable should be sent out to graze, I'd like to hear from someone who actually does this everyday. Maybe if he towed a mobile home around with him it would work... or created the first human clone.

5times, alot of people commute now as we all know and spend all that time in their cars unfortunatly. I don't think doing it for 6 months anyway and then reassessing the situation is any harm.

True, but your complaining about the commute from arklow? yet your expecting your husband to commute from navan, its a tough situation that wasnt thought out correctly, but 55mins v 1 - 2hrs. do the math..

5Times said:

True, but your complaining about the commute from arklow? yet your expecting your husband to commute from navan, its a tough situation that wasnt thought out correctly, but 55mins v 1 - 2hrs. do the math..

Click to expand...

55mins v 1 hr = 5 mins. 2 hrs. and it's a bit much but this is probably the worst case scenario. More than just the commute has to be taken into account...that's the whole point. The husband is only taking a possible negative effect on him into account, while ignoring the wife's feelings about living close to his family, who obviously don't get on with her. His sister has even made it plain that it would be an invasion of her privacy if they moved in close by! The wife in this case is trying to take everyone's feelings into account. They had reached agreement, put down a deposit and he wants to open up the debate all over again. Listen lads, happy wife + happy kids = happy families. Not suggesting for a minute that the husband's concerns shouldn't be taken into account but all partnerships require compromise if they are to work.

Sounds like Headachecity has less options regarding time as she seems to be the one who drops the kids off before going to work. So I think the plan to leave at 4:30pm is the hubbys best option. If its any consolation, I reckon he would be home before 6:30pm. My neighbor leaves work at 4pm and is home by 5:10 (Ranelagh to Trim).

The worst part is that his family are so nasty to him anyway and it took marrying me to stand up to them...long story. Major attention seekers that's all I'm going to say!!.
It's okay for my husband, all he has to do is get into the car and drive to work, he even gets to leave the housework in the mornings behind coz I do it all. On top of getting the kids ready etc and loading them into the car for an hours drive to school & creche when I would much rather being at home with them till the last minute like I am now before walking to school with ds and then up to the creche with dd.I still have to leg it to get to work in time so Arklow would be a hell of alot worse. In navan the new school is a 15 minute walk, my brilliant sister lives around the corner so it's just so easy and I can be in work in minutes in Navan and collect my son from school during lunch and still be home to them by 5.30pm, hubbie would be home before 7pm with his dinner handed to him. I think living in Arklow would be a major cloud of misery for me.

Hi,
Its me again i am only catching up by reading the above replys. I have mailed u on the PM this morning before reading all this, but well done you. Best of luck Navan. We have family there and my dad's originally from there too. I have a reply on the PM 4 u regarding working from home. Let me know if you need any info...

Thanks Sabrina. You never know, we might bump into each other in The Palace some night, fully intend on going there when we move up for the laugh. It's supposed to be the funniest place ever!!.

Can't say i know it? I met my husband in Solar nightclub (in the Newgrange Hotel) best night out! Don't think i'll be doing much dancing until i pop this baby out in Feb/March.... talk to u again soon..... keep me posted on the PM if you like