Cost: It's not cheap, and at no time was buying a house 'easy' or 'cheap'. Granted, people bought big houses in the 80's for £45,000 but earnings back then were much lower and tax rates were much higher. If you want to buy a house, it is an expensive undertaking, which will consume a large portion of your disposable income every month - if you are not ready for that reality, then you should re-examine your options.

A further issue with the Cost of owning a house is that it isn't easy to reduce those costs. A renter can cut their cloth if need be. They can move to a smaller home or a home in a less expensive area.

The homeowner has much less flexibility in this regard.

Responsibility If you own the house then the buck stops with you. If a pipe bursts or the roof is damaged in a storm you are responsible for getting the repairs done.

A renter can pick up the phone and tell the landlord to put things right.

Property Taxes The Stamp Duty system of property tax hits the buyers at the point of purchase right when they are most financially stretched. It does have the advantage that once paid you are free of proeprty taxes for as long as you own the proeprty.

It is likely that the system will eventually be replaced with a system of ongoing taxes which will cost more in the long run but won't involve a huge paying at one time.

Renters don't to worry about property taxes, these are the responsibility of the landlord. In some cases the stamp duty alone on a house purchase would be equivalent to many years of rent.

Lack of Mobility: Renters can move as they see fit and as often as the lease agreements allow. This gives great mobility, and the ability to move county or country with relative ease [in Ireland we don't tend to use long leases the way they do on continental Europe]. Property is not a 'liquid' asset and you can be very much tied to it e.g taking a job in a different place may not be viable because you have bought in an area too far from there and are not willing to move.

Negative Equity:
In the very recent past "experts" assured the Irish people that Negative Equity wouldn't happen in Ireland. Lot many of the claims made by "experts" during the proeprty bubble it wasn't an honest claim. It was an attempt to herd another bunch of victims into the great Irish pyramid scheme.

The simple truth is that unless you buy a huse using a large deposit, you will need to borrow. The greater the proportion of the purchase price you borrow, the closer to the edge you'll be if the value of your house falls.

Negative equity isn't a problem unless you either can't afford to keep paying the mortgage, or you simply want to sell.

Foreclosure and Bankruptcy: Ireland's personal bankruptcy laws are antiquated and rigid. The notion of dropping the keys through the door of the banks if things go wrong is a dangerous and too often believed myth.

If your house has to be sold to pay the mortgage, and it fails to raise enough to clear the debt, the bank can pursue you for the balance.

If the bank has to pursue you through the courts in order to reposess your house then you may also be liable to cover their legal costs as well as your own.