Home prices increased by 7.3% in March amid tight supply
New figures from the Central Statistics Office show that residential property prices grew by 7.3% on an annual basis in March.
This marked the fastest rate of increase since December 2022 and the tenth monthly increase in a row.
The CSO said that home prices rose in Dublin by 7.2% and outside of Dublin by 7.4%, the CSO noted.
Year-on-year home price growth had eased from a peak of 15.1% in February 2022 to a near three-year low of 1.1% last August.
But the supply of new housing is still not growing fast enough to catch up with increased demand.
The CSO said that house prices in Dublin rose by 7.7% while apartment prices rose by 5.3% in the 12 months to March of this year.
The highest house price growth in Dublin was in Dublin City at 9.2% while Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown saw a rise of 5.1%.
Meanwhile, outside of Dublin, house prices were up by 7.2% and apartment prices rose by 10%.
The region outside of Dublin that saw the largest rise in house prices was the Mid-West – Clare, Limerick and Tipperary – at 12.3%.
At the other end of the scale, the Border – Cavan, Donegal, Leitrim, Monaghan and Sligo – saw a 2.9% rise.
Today’s CSO figures show that the median price of a home bought in the 12 months to March was €333,000.
The lowest median price for a home was €168,000 in Leitrim, while the highest median price was €620,000 in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown.
The most expensive Eircode area was A94 “Blackrock” with a median price of €720,000, while F45 “Castlerea” had the least expensive price of €135,000.
The CSO noted that property prices nationally have increased by 143.2% from their trough in early 2013.
Dublin residential property prices have risen by 142.9% from their February 2012 low, while prices in the Rest of Ireland are 152% higher than at their troughch was in May 2013.
Meanwhile a total of 3,314 homes purchased at market prices were filed with the Revenue Commissioners, down by 19.8% when compared with the 4,132 purchases the same time last year.
The price of new homes in the first quarter of 2024 were 8.4% higher than the same time last year, while the prices of existing homes were 5.7% higher than last year.
Commenting on today’s figures, Goodbody’s chief economist Dermot O’Leary said that housing transactions were quite weak in March and in the first quarter of 2024 overall.
He said that while March may have been influenced by the timing of Easter, a lower turnover of the existing stock lies behind the weakness in the quarterly figures.
“This is a trend that has also been evident in the mortgage lending statistics and stems from a situation where there is a record low stock for sale currently,” the economist said.
Mr O’Leary noted that the non-household sector accounted for 21% of housing transactions in the first three months of this year, but accounted for 41% of new home transactions, adding that the increasing role of State bodies such as Approved Housing Bodies (AHBs) continues to play a factor here.
“There have been conflicting reports about the trends in new home supply from various data in the first quarter,” he said.
“For example, new home completions fell by 12%, yet housing commencements rose by 63%. We believe that the overall direction for supply is upwards, helped by a number of government initiatives such as the waiver on development levies,” he added.
Article Source: Home prices increased by 7.3% in March amid tight supply
