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<\/p>\nNew research from Switcher.ie has revealed what places in Ireland are the most affordable for first time buyers, together and alone, and the list may surprise you<\/p>\n
Close-up of the keys to a new apartment(Image: Getty Images)<\/p>\n
The latest research by Switcher.ie <\/a>has revealed the most affordable places for first time buyers<\/a> in Ireland.<\/p>\n Buying a home is becoming increasingly difficult for people due to sky high costs<\/a> but the areas that are most affordable may surprise you.<\/p>\n Longford was the most affordable<\/a> place for joint first-time buyers for the third year running. One of the cheapest places to buy a house, it would take just 2.3 years to save the minimum 10% deposit.<\/p>\n Leitrim, Donegal, Mayo, and Roscommon joined Longford in the top five most affordable counties for home buyers. To save a deposit in the shortest time, buyers should look to one of these counties or others at the top of our Affordability Index.<\/p>\n Couples earning the average salary in Leitrim could save for a mortgage deposit in two years and four months, in Donegal, Roscommon or Mayo it could take two years and five months.<\/p>\n Unsurprisingly, areas in and around Dublin were the most out of reach for first time buyers, with D\u00fan Laoghaire the least affordable place for both joint and sole buyers.<\/p>\n D\u00fan Laoghaire ranks as most out of reach for mortgage seekers, requiring a couple to save for a staggering 21 years and 3 months. South Dublin, Galway City, Louth and Wicklow follow at around 10 years, making them the most challenging regions for joint buyers.<\/p>\n Roscommon, Leitrim, Longford, Donegal and Cavan proved most affordable for sole buyers. If buying alone, it would take at least 3 and a half years to save for a deposit in one of these counties, based on the typical local salary. A sole buyer can expect to part with at least four times their salary to own a property.<\/p>\n D\u00fan Laoghaire, Wicklow, Dublin and Galway were most out of reach for sole buyers, with a sole transaction in Dun Laoghaire averaging \u20ac548,000 – meaning it could take a resident on the average salary for that area up to 66.5 years to save for a deposit.<\/p>\n Switcher.ie’s research also revealed that the average time it takes for a couple to save for a mortgage deposit in Ireland is 7 years 2 months, up from 4 years 7 months last year.<\/p>\n As well as this, 65% of Ireland’s new builds were completed in the 10 most expensive regions during 2025, while the cheapest 10 areas only attracted 11% of new dwellings. This disadvantages first-time buyers who need to use Help to Buy schemes.<\/p>\n Want to see more of the stories you love from RSVP<\/a> ? To add RSVP as a preferred source of news on Google, simply click here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New research from Switcher.ie has revealed what places in Ireland are the most affordable for first time buyers,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":400340,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1312,615,4500,61,60,8764,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-400339","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-consumer","9":"tag-dublin","10":"tag-galway","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-mayo","14":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=400339"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400339\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/400340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=400339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=400339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=400339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}