Michael Bolton
A report has shown house prices have increased in Ireland by 7.5 per cent in the last year.
The latest MyHome.ie report shows the average asking price for house in Ireland is €365,000, an increase of 0.6 per cent on the last quarter.
The average asking price in Dublin is €455,000, while elsewhere it was €315,000.
The last time this annual figure was higher was in Q3 2022, when inflation was 7.8 per cent nationwide.
The report revealed one in seven properties are now selling for 20 per cent over the asking price.
Inflation in asking prices is lower in Dublin at 6.2 per cent year-on-year, but the rate is accelerating to 8.5 per cent outside the capital.
The report also showed Ireland would need to deliver an additional 206,000 homes this year alone to match the UK’s housing to population ratio.
The number of properties listed for sale on MyHome.ie last month was just 13,100, a figure that is well down on pre-pandemic levels of more than 20,000.
The average time to sale agreed was just 12 weeks in the third quarter, close to a historic low.
Conall MacCoille, Chief Economist at Bank of Ireland, said: “Perhaps the most striking news since our last MyHome report is that Ireland’s population grew by 1.9% pace for a second successive year, to 5.38 million in 2024.
"We have not seen population and economic growth at this level since the Celtic tiger era, and as a result the housing market is being put under intense pressure.
“A simple way to illustrate this is to ask how many homes Ireland would need to build to match the UK’s housing to population ratio. Our report shows that to ‘catch up’ with the UK’s housing stock would now require an additional 206,000 homes, versus 138,000 in 2020.
Joanne Geary, Managing Director of MyHome.ie, said: “It is heartening to see housing starts continue to rise as well as expectations that housing completions will exceed 40,000 units next year.
"This is the kind of trend we will need to see for years to come to redress the imbalance in the market, as epitomised in this latest report by our performance relative to that of the UK.”
