House prices in County Cork up 37% in four years

AVERAGE PRICE OF HOUSE I UP 9.2% ON LAST YEAR

A NEW report has revealed the average asking price for a house in Cork has increased by a staggering 37% since its lowest point in 2013.

The Daft.ie House Price Report for the first quarter of 2017 has shown that the average asking price for a house in the county has also increased by almost 2% since the start of the year.

Widely regarded as a key barometer of the Irish housing market, the report analyses trends within residential sales providing a comprehensive review of activity within the sector over specific time frames.

It showed that as at the end of March the average asking price for a house in Cork stood at €196,275 – a 9.2% on the same period in 2016.

While house prices in Cork continue to rise, the rate of increase has slowed down somewhat when compared to the first quarter of last year, when it stood at 12.1% up on the same period in 2015.

While all of the counties in Cork experienced year-on-year increases, Waterford was the only one to come near Cork, with an average asking price of €193,724.

At the end of March the average asking price for home in Kerry stood at €170,558 (up 3.6% on 2016), Limerick €159,697 (up 5.4%), Clare €157,935 (up 5.4%) and Tipperary €154,302 (up 4.2%).

In Cork City the average asking price at the end of March stood at €257,005, a quarter-on-quarter increase of 3.6%, representing a year-on-year hike of 10.7%.

Cork City remains by some distance the most expensive place to buy in Munster, with house prices having risen by a whopping 56.5% when compared to those of the housing trough of four-years ago.

Nationally, house prices rose by an average of 4.3% during the first quarter of 2017, the largest three-monthly increase in two years.

South County Dublin remains the most expensive area of the country to buy, with the average asking price standing at €548,008, a year-on-year increase of 5.4%. Counties Longford, Leitrim, Sligo and Roscommon remain the cheapest counties in which to buy a house in the country.

The problem of limited housing supply, is still one of the key reasons behind the steady increase in house prices, with just 20,500 homes on the market in March. This represents a reduction of almost 3,500 on the same period in 2016 and a 67.4% reduction from its peak of almost 63,000 in October 2008.

This trend is reflected in Munster, with just 7,150 properties up for sale last month, the lowest number since February 2007.

Commenting on the report its author Ronan Lyons, assistant professor of economics at TCD, said it was unfortunate that the primary focus of policy efforts late last year was to further stimulate demand and prices, rather than supply and quantities.

“Adding up the four components of demand – obsolescence, falling household size, natural increase and net migration – it is clear the country needs at least 40,000, and in reality probably 50,000 homes per year,” said Professor Lyons.

“But in recent years, the number of new homes built has been at most one-quarter of that. Given that huge shortfall, it is incumbent on policy makers to focus their efforts on increasing housing supply where it is needed,” he added.