Cost of a home increased by 5% in February but rate of growth slowed

The cost of a home rose in the 12 months to February, with the steepest increases occurring outside the capital, but the rate of growth slowed overall compared to January, new data from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) shows.

The national Residential Property Price Index shows prices increased by 5 per cent in the 12 months to February, with prices in Dublin rising by 3.2 per cent and prices outside the capital rising at twice that rate, up by 6.4 per cent.

The figures also show fewer people bought homes, with 3,351 purchases made by households, which was a 6.5 per cent decrease compared with the 3,584 purchases in February 2022 and an 8.8 per cent decline compared with the 3,675 purchases in January.

The total value of transactions filed in February was €1.2 billion. The median price of a dwelling purchased in the 12 months to February was €310,000.

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The increase in prices was down from 6.1 per cent in the year to January, and from the high values of 15.1 per cent in the 12 months to February and March 2022.

Overall prices of new dwellings have more than doubled from their trough in the middle of 2013. Prices of existing dwellings are now 133.4 per cent higher than at their trough in 2012.

Commenting on the data, Daragh Cassidy of mortgage brokers and switching site bonkers.ie questioned whether “prices [would] begin to fall dramatically over the coming months given the big increase in interest rates that we’ve seen”.

He said that while forecasts for property price growth focus heavily on supply and demand and to a slightly lesser extent the Central Bank of Ireland’s mortgage lending rules “the impact of rising interest rates [by the ECB] and therefore repayment capacity seems to have been almost forgotten about”.

In Dublin house prices increased by 3 per cent and apartment prices were up by 4 per cent. The highest house price growth in the capital was in south Dublin at 9.3 per cent, while Dublin city saw a decline of 0.5 per cent.

Outside Dublin house prices were up by 6.6 per cent and apartment prices rose by 3.3 per cent.

The Dublin region had the highest median price (€432,000) in the year to February. Within the Dublin region, Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown had the highest median price (€630,000), while south Dublin had the lowest (€402,000).

The highest median prices outside of Dublin were in Wicklow (€420,000) and Kildare (€370,000), while the lowest price was €152,000 in Longford.

The five most expensive Eircode areas by median price were in Dublin. The most expensive area over the 12 months to February was Blackrock with a median price of €755,000. The second most expensive area was Dublin 6 where the median price was €682,500. The third most expensive area was Dublin 14 which had a median price of €675,000. The areas with the least expensive median price within Dublin were Dublin 10 and 17, both with a median price of €285,000.

Outside of Dublin the most expensive area over the past 12 months was Greystones with a median price of €534,999. The second most expensive area was Bray with a median price was €466,000. The third most expensive was Celbridge at €434,999.

The least expensive areas over the last 12 months were Castlerea and Ballyhaunis, both with a median price of €130,000. The third least expensive area was Clones, which had a median price of €136,500.

The region outside of Dublin that saw the largest rise in prices was the Border (Cavan, Donegal, Leitrim, Monaghan, Sligo) at 9 per cent, while at the other end of the scale the Mid-West (Clare, Limerick, Tipperary) saw a 4.9 per cent rise.

Prices of new dwellings in the fourth quarter of last year were 10 per cent higher than in the corresponding period of 2021. This compares with an increase of 9.1 per cent in the year to the third quarter.