Hi, I'm Chris and my wife is Jeannie. We live in Dallas and are going to move to Ireland when we retire. Now we just need to retire! (Hopefully soon.) My two biggest questions are in the areas of real estate and health care. Liam (or anyone else) I noticed in an earlier reply that you said the Model we use in the US with a realtor representing the buyer isn't common in Ireland. Did I get that right? So buyers tend to represent themselves? With being able to search on the internet (I've found myhome.ie to be very good) I actually do think that the buyer's agent Model is becoming kind of outdated. People can mostly find the properties that they like without a realtor. But when it comes time to make an offer, get the required inspections, government documentation, etc,... I can see a buyers agent being useful - particularly for a non-Irish citizen. Perhaps there are lawyers that can play {some} of that role. Can you elaborate on how all that works. I'm also curious about the all in costs of the buying transaction. Here in the US, as I alluded to above, there are lots of inspections (termites in Texas!), document fees ad infinitum. I've seen a "stamp duty"(1%?) referenced on myhome.ie. Is that similar to the property tax we pay here in the US. In Texas I pay ˜2% of my home's appraised value - but I pay it annually!!! I think I like the Irish Model much better. 😉 Health care. So I think I've read that we have to buy private insurance. Yes? But I looked around and some of the prices seemed remarkably good. In the US for my wife and me and I think we would be paying $10-15k.year until medicare kicks in when we turn 65. It looked like I could similar private insurance in Eire for maybe a tenth of the US cost. Can that be right? What am I missing? Sorry for being so long-winded in my intro. I'll go away and think of more questions. But thanks in advance for any help on the housing and health fronts! Chris

The one I have is not something I could pack up. I did find one that will work on a UK website. It is $299 in the US, and needs about $50-100 in mods to make great. The base Model is £479 in the UK.