Price of houses up €17k across the country in a year

Official figures say average is now over €306,000

THE price of the average house has gone up by almost €17,000 over the past 12 months, the latest figures show.

Official Government figures show the average property price in November was €306,392 compared to €289,615 a year earlier.

However, in the most expensive parts of Dublin, prices have actually been falling. The Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown district of the capital has the highest average price of €600,335 but that is down from €619,093 a year ago, CSO figures released yesterday have shown.

Outside of Dublin, the counties of Kildare, Louth, Meath and Wicklow – known as the ‘mid-east’ – were the most expensive areas with an average price of €301,142. Wicklow was the most expensive county in the region, with a mean price of €357,831 and the second most expensive county after Dublin.

The border region – which covers counties Cavan, Donegal, Leitrim, Monaghan and Sligo – was the least expensive in the year to November 2018, with an average price of €144,090 and Leitrim was the least expensive county, with a mean price of €118,733.

Prices are rising at just 1.4% a year and the prices are down over 16% on its highest pre-crash level in 2007.

Property prices nationally have increased by 85.7% from their trough in early 2013. Dublin residential property prices have risen 94.9% from their February 2012 low, whilst residential property prices in the rest of Ireland are 84.3% higher than at their lowest in May 2013.

Property developers GPD director Eamon Hetherington said: ‘These figures suggest a slowdown in house price growth – but the overwhelming feeling in the marketplace is that we will see house prices go up this year.

‘So, any levelling off may well be short-lived, which is concerning because in December of last year, the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) said that ‘prices are as high as they can possibly go, given affordability in the domestic economy’.

He said the cost of building a home is going up. ‘We need to address the factors that will drive prices up – supply is an obvious one, but before we can look at supply, we must look at the cost of building. Material costs are going up and will continue to increase in line with Brexit.

‘Ireland currently imports a large portion of its building products from England - we need to start looking at buying directly from Europe. Also, land remains too expensive. Property prices will fall only when the cost of land comes down,’ he said.

‘We should be looking up – not out,’ he said. ‘We need good sized apartments – and we should be encouraging builders to develop these – not just to fit as many as they can on one site. But this needs to be facilitated and local authorities need to step in to support the feasibility of these developments… allotments in urban areas for residents, proper and secure bike storage facilities, greater infrastructure etc.

‘Ultimately Ireland’s economic forecast is positive. Growth is expected, but it will put a greater strain on our housing needs. For example, just last week KPMG announced they are looking for 800 workers – 400 of these will be graduates. These people will have differing housing needs – we must be able to accommodate our workers and their families.’

‘We should look up, not out’ ‘Building costs to rise with Brexit’