GOING INTO ITS third season on Virgin Media Television, the enjoyable Help Me Buy a Home is what you get when you relocate the house-buying shows you\u2019re used to on Channel 4 over to Ireland.<\/p>\n
Given the highly charged nature of the housing crisis in this country, a programme that simply showed people looking at homes and buying them would hit a little uncomfortably given this supposedly ordinary process is out of reach for so many<\/a>.<\/p>\n In that context, it\u2019s no accident that RT\u00c9\u2019s only real effort at one of these programmes in recent years is literally called Cheap Irish Homes. The title getting out in front of any debate about privilege by essentially saying, \u2018relax lads, these homes are cheap\u2019.<\/p>\n The problem with that programme, however, is that the often dilapidated properties shown are rarely bought, leaving the viewer to learn that the sky is blue and having more money will help you buy a more liveable property.<\/p>\n Help Me Buy a Home is different because it does endeavour to show success stories, even if that means the participants are getting big mortgages and stretching themselves financially.<\/p>\n In the upcoming run, presenter and buyers agent Liz O\u2019Kane says there are 12 participants over the series and that nine go sale agreed on the programme, with two more going sale agreed since the shows were filmed.<\/p>\n \u201cAll of the participants are pretty broad and varied. To be frank, some of them are coming with cash,\u201d O\u2019Kane says.\n<\/p>\n You know, not everybody is struggling.<\/p>\n \u201cSome of them are coming with significant levels of cash, and some of them are first-time buyers, and some of them are trying to get themselves back into the country, and the budgets are broad and varied.\u201d<\/p>\n O\u2019Kane\u2019s day job as a buyer\u2019s agent sees her research properties for would-be homebuyers and conduct negotiations if they so wish.<\/p>\n She says the show matches her clients who are predominantly first-time buyers but who also come from different walks of life and circumstances.<\/p>\n She points out that this new series includes somebody with significant needs and another woman who is \u201cdownsizing at the age of 78\u2033 after a divorce.<\/p>\n \u201cI felt her story was really, really important because it\u2019s not all about first-time buyers. There\u2019s other phases of life as well, and other things that come along and sometimes surprise us at that stage of life, being divorced and selling a family home and having to rehouse yourself is unbelievably stressful.\u201d<\/p>\n As well as taking in budgets big and small, the show seeks to be relatable to the house-buying experience by mixing the house-hunting with the ducks-in-row practicalities like speaking to mortgage brokers and investigating various grants.<\/p>\n Virgin Media Television<\/a> \/ YouTube<\/p>\n Just like the second series, PJ Kirby and Kevin Twomey of the I\u2019m Grand Mam podcast are the neophytes learning those basics.<\/p>\n In the first series, comedian Michael Fry fulfilled this role and such is the tenseness around the issue of housing that he was forced to defend himself on social media for simply speaking<\/a> to then minister Darragh O\u2019Brien as part of the programme.<\/p>\n O\u2019Kane is particularly proud that the nuts and bolts of buying a home are addressed in the series, saying she thinks it\u2019s the \u201conly programme that really delivers\u201d on showing \u201cthe practicalities and difficulties administratively of purchasing in a housing crisis\u201d.<\/p>\n When asked if it\u2019s getting any easier for people, she\u2019s blunt in saying that it\u2019s not, adding that the term \u2018asking price\u2019 really needs to be replaced with \u2018launch price\u2019.<\/p>\n Government supports<\/p>\n