Almost two-thirds of people believe house prices will rise in next 12 months

Almost two-thirds of people expect house prices to rise in the next 12 months, but one in five expect prices to stay the same and 15 per cent think they will fall, a survey by MyHome.ie found.

Among those who believe house prices will increase further, the largest cohort (some 42 per cent of all respondents) believe they will do so by up to 5 per cent, according to the survey of 1,700 people.

Only 18 per cent think prices will rise by 5-10 per cent, with just 4 per cent expecting a surge of more than 10 per cent.

Respondents were in agreement on the question of whether the Government was doing enough to address the housing crisis: some 93 per cent said it should be doing more.

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"Given that the Taoiseach has already said the Government would be judged on how it deals with the housing crisis, the fact that the overwhelming majority of people believe they should be doing more, will no doubt be a concern," said Angela Keegan, managing director of MyHome.ie, which is owned by The Irish Times.

Scheme awareness

Ms Keegan said it was interesting to see that awareness of the Help to Buy scheme was quite high among first-time buyers at 72 per cent, but awareness of other Government schemes such as Rebuilding Ireland Home Loans and the Mortgage Allowance scheme were much lower at 12 per cent, while awareness of the Shared Ownership scheme was lower again at 4 per cent.

According to the property website’s survey, some 31 per cent of first-time buyers were aged 25-30, while 29 per cent were aged 31-35 and a further 16 per cent were aged 36-40.

The rising age profile of the group has been a recurring feature of surveys in recent years, Ms Keegan noted. This is mainly the result of the shortage of affordable housing.

Some 40 per cent of those surveyed said they expected to buy a new home in the next 12 months, with 34 per cent indicating that they were undecided and 26 per cent saying they had no plans to buy.