JUST OVER A year and a half ago, we asked readers a simple question: how does anyone actually manage to buy a house in Ireland?<\/p>\n
The answers were complicated<\/a>.<\/p>\n Readers told us about inheritances and loans from parents, years living at home, sacrificing holidays, moving counties and, in one memorable case, living in a freezing cabin where slugs came through the walls.<\/p>\n Many who had bought felt lucky to have done so when they did, saying they couldn\u2019t afford the same home today.<\/p>\n They were right: prices have kept climbing. The median home sold for \u20ac396,000 in the 12 months to June, according to the CSO.<\/p>\n Figures from the Institute of Professional Auctioneers and Valuers (IPAV) are even more stark. They show the average price across three- and four-bedroom semi-detached houses and two-bedroom apartments has risen from \u20ac280,629 in early 2021 to \u20ac411,241 this year, an increase of around 46% in five years.<\/p>\n And the asking price is often only the beginning. MyHome found homes were selling for 7% to 8% above asking this summer, rising to around 9% to 10% in Dublin.<\/p>\n That\u2019s a lot of figures, but behind them is a fairly simple reality: people trying to buy their first home are having to spend more, look further afield and compete harder for what\u2019s available.<\/p>\n So, this week, we went back to first-time buyers to ask what trying to buy a home in Ireland looks like now<\/a>.<\/p>\n Many thanks to the readers who shared their stories. Here\u2019s what you told us.\n<\/p>\n \u2018We have viewed about 50 properties\u2019<\/p>\n One Cork couple, both aged 29, have spent close to a year constantly going to viewings and bidding on homes.<\/p>\n On paper, they said, there are plenty of houses they can afford. In reality, it has been a different story.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have viewed about 50 properties now, all with an asking price within our budget and mortgage approvals,\u201d they told us.<\/p>\n However, almost every house we have bid on has gone \u20ac50,000 above asking price, making them unachievable.<\/p>\n They estimated that the houses they have been interested in have generally ended up about 10% above the asking price.<\/p>\n After close to a year of trying, they said they are now at their \u201cwits\u2019 end\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cWe will have to start looking for smaller houses, which are still going above asking [price], or move further away, which I really do not want to do.\u201d<\/p>\n There are other costs too. The couple have delayed getting married while trying to buy.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve also postponed travel plans to try save up more.\u201d<\/p>\n They are far from alone.<\/p>\n A Dublin couple, aged 38 and 40, told us they had seen apartments they bid on eventually go for between 12% and 27% above asking price.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is always someone willing to pay more than you, even when you do not think that price is worth [it],\u201d they said.<\/p>\n In one case, they said they tried to bid on a one-bedroom apartment in south Dublin but were told the seller preferred competing cash buyers, despite the couple being willing at that stage to offer more money.<\/p>\n Their response has been to consider borrowing more, putting down a smaller deposit and widening their search beyond the parts of Dublin they originally wanted to live in.<\/p>\n Saving more, falling further behind<\/p>\n Perhaps the neatest illustration of the problem came from another reader in Cork, who is 49 and has been searching for five years.<\/p>\n They said they had managed to increase their savings by 40% over that period.<\/p>\n But house prices in the areas they were watching had, by their calculation, risen by 54%.<\/p>\n \u201cSo I\u2019m still behind on where I was in 2021,\u201d they wrote.<\/p>\n That feeling, of running hard simply to stand still came up repeatedly.<\/p>\n A 44-year-old reader in Galway said she and her partner now earn a combined \u20ac110,000 after years of retraining and changing careers.<\/p>\n Yet she described finding themselves caught between house prices, deposit requirements and the limits of various State schemes.<\/p>\n \u201cThe frustration is that we\u2019re so close,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n We\u2019re close to being able to do it and each time we get closer, the prices increase.<\/p>\n She questioned the prospect of spending close to half a million euro on a relatively modest new-build simply because cheaper routes to homeownership appeared closed off to them.<\/p>\n Today\u2019s first-time buyer is not necessarily someone on a low income who simply needs to save a little longer.<\/p>\n MyHome said in its latest quarterly report that the average first-time buyer with a mortgage had a household income of \u20ac95,000 last year.<\/p>\n The median mortgage and property value among first-time buyers have both risen by around a third in the space of five years.<\/p>\n And even the economists examining whether Irish property is outright overvalued are finding a sizeable gap.<\/p>\n New ESRI research estimates that Irish house prices were around 17% above the level suggested<\/a> by underlying economic fundamentals in the third quarter of last year.<\/p>\n The ESRI does not see this as a replay of the Celtic Tiger. Debt levels and credit conditions are significantly less alarming than they were before the crash.<\/p>\n Instead, the researchers say today\u2019s pressures are more consistent with a structural shortage of housing, alongside affordability problems, than a credit-fuelled bubble.<\/p>\n The IPAV says first-time buyers are struggling to find homes within their budgets, fuelling fierce competition for those they can afford.<\/p>\n The ESRI also found that the current overvaluation appears to be hitting middle-income households particularly hard.<\/p>\n That description tallies rather neatly with the readers who contacted us.<\/p>\n They included couples on solid salaries, people who had retrained to earn more, people with mortgage approval and people who had accumulated sizeable deposits.<\/p>\n One 25-year-old Dublin reader, D\u00e1ire, is in the unusually fortunate position of having received \u20ac200,000 from his parents after they sold a rental property.<\/p>\n He earns \u20ac53,000 himself, giving him a total budget of around \u20ac450,000.<\/p>\n Even at that level, he said three-bedroom houses listed at \u20ac450,000 can quickly disappear beyond his reach once bidding begins.<\/p>\n The choice he now sees is between a smaller apartment or compromising heavily on where he lives.<\/p>\n \u201cOn Daft.ie there are several 3 bed one-bath houses available also at 450k in my area \u2013 however this appears to be a tactic used by sellers to get a higher price,\u201d D\u00e1ire said.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople will rush to put a bid in and continue bidding until the price is several tens of thousands higher.\u201d<\/p>\n More homes, but still not enough<\/p>\n There are signs of improvement in housing supply.<\/p>\n There were 7,856 new homes completed<\/a> in the first three months of this year, the strongest first quarter since the CSO series began in 2011.<\/p>\n Another 8,823 were completed<\/a> between April and June, meaning 16,679 new dwellings were finished in the first half of 2026.<\/p>\n But the second-quarter figure was actually 3.6% lower than the same period last year, driven partly by a 12% fall in apartment completions.<\/p>\n And demand is not standing still while homes are being built.<\/p>\n The IPAV says first-time buyers are competing not just with one another, but with cash purchasers, investment funds and State bodies for a still-scarce pool of homes.<\/p>\n