By Jennifer Long and Julie Smyth
A Waterford auctioneer says he is "not surprised" by figures showing Dunmore East has seen a 51.2% rise in property prices since the pandemic began.
That's according to the Daft.ie Coastal Report 2021 which shows it now costs more to buy a property close to the sea.
Keith Palmer of Palmer Auctioneers in Waterford city said Dunmore East has always been a popular destination over the years.
But in the past 18 months, demand has "gone through the roof" for properties there, with Covid playing a huge part.
"The emphasis (has been) on staycationing and remote working which has brought more emphasis on holiday homes and re-locating out of urban areas for a better quality of life," he told Damien Tiernan on Deise Today this morning (Thursday).
"The demand has increased exponentially, and resultantly, prices have increased."
The new Coastal Report 2021 reveals that, on average, the cost of a home close to the coast has risen by an average of 23% since the pandemic began.
Alongside the analysis of the change in premium over time, they focused specifically on a number of well known coastal areas.
Price premium
Elsewhere, places like Lahinch in Clare and Kilmore Quay in Wexford have seen the average price of a 3-bed house increase by 39 per cent and 54 per cent, respectively, in the year since the start of Covid-19 compared to the year proceeding Covid-19.
They said they looked at 120,000 properties listed for sale nationwide on the daft.ie website from January 2019 to April 2021 and estimated how the price premium on coastal properties relative to other identical properties has changed over that time.
They found clear evidence that echoes the anecdotes that the price of coastal properties have been on the increase since the onset of the pandemic.
In particular, they say an effect on properties that are, not just within 500 metres of the coast of Ireland, but in areas where more than 10 per cent of the total stock of housing are holiday homes.
Not far off 'boom levels'
On Deise Today this morning, Keith Palmer acknowledged that Dunmore and also the West Waterford coastal village of Ardmore, seemed to have particular appeal for those looking to re-locate.
He said buyers were a mix of locals, those from Dublin and the Greater Dublin area, but also international buyers (particularly from the UK) and Irish ex-pats living abroad.
Levels of interest, he said, were not quite at the 2006/2007 "boom levels" but were not far off either.
He said the 51% increase cited for Dunmore East would not apply to all properties on the market - some are selling for less and some for more.
"Whenever we do have a property in Dunmore East or the surrounding area, we are literally inundated with enquiries," he said, adding that they recently sold a house in the area for 400,000 while pre-boom a neighbouring and similar house sold for 340,000.
Other key findings from the Coastal Report include:
- One fifth of coastal properties are selling for more than 10 per cent of the asking value - twice the national average
- Some of the biggest price increases compared to before Covid-19 are seen in Kilmore Quay, Wexford (54.2 per cent), Dunmore East, Waterford (51 per cent), Lahinch, Clare (39 per cent), Renvyle/Ltterfrack, Galway (39% and Schull, West Cork (34 per cent)
You can listen back to Keith Palmer speaking to Damien Tiernan this morning by clicking below here...
