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Liz O’Kane is a straight talker.
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O’Kane → publish → ?
Ireland’s original buyer’s agent pulls no punches, has little time for property-market niceties and, when it comes to the brutal business of buying a home in Ireland, believes there is absolutely no point in sugar-coating it.
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it → pull → it
Putting in a cheeky bid below the asking price, for example, is a waste of everybody’s time.
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Putting → put → time
‘Don’t bother your backside,’ she advises.
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she → bother → backside
She has even less patience for the latest habit among buyers of increasing their offer by €1,000 and then taking days to make their next move.
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She → have → move
‘Belt the f*** on,’ is Liz’s preferred approach, a phrase she used so frequently while filming the third series of Help Me Buy A Home – which kicks off on Virgin Media One tomorrow night – that the production team presented her with a gold bar necklace bearing its acronym.
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team → belt → acronym
‘I was absolutely thrilled,’ she laughs.
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she → laugh → ?
Liz O'Kane is back on our screens for the third series of How To Buy A Home
At 62 and looking as stylish as ever, Liz is back on our screens for the third series of the property show, helping frustrated house- hunters navigate a market she bluntly describes as ‘broken’.
She is joined again by I’m Grand Mam podcasters PJ Kirby and Kevin Twomey, who return as roving reporters, investigating what is really happening on the ground for renters and the so-called ‘Generation Lock-out’.
After 24 years buying and negotiating property on behalf of purchasers, Liz has strong opinions on everything from the increasingly meaningless ‘asking price’ to online bidding and the constant rhetoric around Ireland’s housing crisis.
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Liz → buy → crisis
But, she tells me, one of the biggest property lessons she has learned recently had nothing to do with a client.
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she → tell → client
The mother-of-two – who has just come through a divorce from her architect ex Rory – had last year decided it was finally time to sell the Rathmines family home where she had lived for more than two decades.
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she → come → decades
As somebody who has spent much of her adult life advising other people about property, she was fairly confident she knew exactly what she was doing.
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she → spend → what
‘So I’m the property expert, yeah?’ she says.
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she → ’m → ?
‘I’ve spent decades in this sector.
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I → spend → sector
I told my ex that the market was buoyant, we were in a vibrant position and it was time.’
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it → tell → position
Liz with her co-presenters PJ Kirby and Kevin Twomey
Then the property expert did the ultimate 180.
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expert → do → 180
‘I changed my mind,’ she says simply.
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she → change → mind
‘It was like a light bulb went off in my brain.
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bulb → go → brain
As soon as I started to look at rental properties within my location, I realised that what I had I couldn’t replicate anywhere else, and I couldn’t justify paying up to €4,000 rent a month.
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I → start → rent
Instead, Liz bought her ex out and stayed, taking on what she admits is ‘a bigger mortgage than I had ever anticipated’.
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I → buy → ex
It might seem a daunting prospect, but Liz is characteristically unfazed.
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Liz → seem → ?
‘I’m not one bit concerned,’ she shrugs.
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she → ’m → ?
‘I’m good at working things out as I go along and
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I → ’m → things
the kids are delighted that we still have the house.
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we → delight → house
We’ve lived here for over 20 years, there’s a lifetime of memories.
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We → live → memories
‘It’s a home, not just a house, and it only slammed me over the head when I was about to lose it.’
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I → ’ → it
There is another reality to separation that Liz knows only too well.
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Liz → be → that
She and her former husband were separated for over ten years and continued living under the same roof while their children were in secondary school.
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children → separate → school
I tell her that I too have been through a family split and, while it was of course traumatic, my ex and I are fortunate enough to now have two homes.
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ex → tell → homes
‘That is indeed very fortunate,’ she says.
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she → say → ?
‘And it’ll be fortunate for your kids when you’re dead,’ she adds in what I’m learning is her trademark dark humour – similar in style to her comedian sister Deirdre.
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I → ’re → sister
For many separating couples, finding the money for one home is difficult enough, finding it for two can be impossible.
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finding → separate → two
‘It’s incredibly difficult for spouses who are left with no choice but to be separated under one roof,’ she says.
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she → ’ → roof
‘That’s a real modern tragedy actually and a very stressful position to find yourself in.’
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That → ’ → yourself
Liz is sceptical of statistics presented without meaningful context
Yet while the phrase ‘housing crisis’ has become part of the Irish vernacular, Liz has surprisingly little time for it.
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Liz → present → it
‘I think we’ve had a housing crisis for the last 20 years,’ she says.
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she → think → years
‘There’s nothing new going on here and, to be honest, that rhetoric annoys me.
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rhetoric → ’ → me
‘If you go back almost 20 years, circa 2008 to 2010, before we all went belly-up in the financial crisis, it wasn’t the housing crisis, it was the banking crisis.
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it → go → crisis
We were building about 70,000 units a year and then we went belly-up.
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we → build → units
Austerity kicked in.’
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Austerity → kick → ?
She’s equally sceptical of statistics presented without meaningful context.
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She → ’ → context
…and 82 more, not listed.
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