house prices<\/a> were on average 5.5 per cent higher in July than they were in the same month last year, the Central Statistics Office (CSO) said in its latest residential property price index report today, down from 5.6 per cent in June.<\/p>\nThis represented the lowest annual rise since January 2024, when the annual increase was 5.4 per cent, the statistics agency said. <\/p>\n
The rate of property price inflation in Dublin fell to 4.4 per cent from 4.6 per cent in June, according to the data. Outside Dublin, prices increased by 6.4 per cent annually in July, unchanged from June.<\/p>\n
House prices have cooled somewhat this year against a backdrop of rising interest rates and an increase in the supply of new homes to the market. The supply of second-hand homes, however, remains acutely constrained, according to estate agents, which is creating price pressures in certain segments of the market.<\/p>\n
Trevor Grant, chairman of the Association of Irish Mortgage Advisors, said the gradual cooling off observed throughout 2026 will be a welcome development for prospective housebuyers.<\/p>\n
\u201cHowever, for a lot of aspiring buyers, this let-up will not be enough to afford them the opportunity to buy their first home by the end of this year,\u201d he said. \u201cWhile the rate of house price growth is easing, let\u2019s not forget that house prices are still rising and inflation for housing is higher than it is in many other areas.\u201d<\/p>\n
Experts believe the interest rate environment may also pose problems on both the housing demand and supply side of the equation over the coming months.<\/p>\n
The European Central Bank increased key interest rates in June and again last week in response to a surge in euro area inflation arising from the Iran war energy shock.<\/p>\n
Genevieve McGuirk, chief executive of the Institute of Professional Auctioneers & Valuers (Ipav), said today\u2019s CSO figures represent only a \u201cslight lessening\u201d in house price inflation. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe concern is that increasing interest rates will impact buyers struggling to get on the property ladder and competing with cash buyers, those on higher salaries and State bodies,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
On the supply side, higher interest rates will also create challenges for developers and the financing of housing projects, McGuirk said, \u201cgiven input cost increases on top of existing pressures on viability\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe back end of the year may present a deteriorating outlook for many aspiring buyers,\u201d said Rachel McGovern, deputy chief executive at Brokers Ireland. \u201cThat deserves factoring in.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said: \u201cIn an increasing interest rate environment, history would teach us that lenders become ever more risk-averse, which could mean certain products being withdrawn from the market or the terms around certain offerings becoming tighter.\u201d<\/p>\n
In its latest quarterly bulletin, the Central Bank revised down its forecasts for new home completions for this year and next on the back of a slowdown in housing commencements.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"House price inflation slowed to another two-and-a-half-year low in July, as rising interest rates and increased supply of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":626407,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[72,14787,113,3662,11596,61,60],"class_list":["post-626406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-central-statistics-office","tag-economy","tag-housing-crisis","tag-housing-demand","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626406","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=626406"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626406\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/626407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=626406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=626406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=626406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}