House price inflation slowed to its lowest level in nearly three years in August, according to official Government figures, as a combination of increased supply, higher borrowing costs and geopolitical uncertainty cooled the market.
The latest Residential Property Price Index from the Central Statistics Office indicated that prices nationally rose at an annualised rate of 5.1 per cent in August, down from 5.4 per cent in July.
This was the lowest level of price growth in the Irish market since December 2023.
Property prices in Dublin rose by 3.9 per cent while prices outside Dublin were up by 6.2 per cent compared with August last year.
The latest assessment comes amid a marked slowdown in prices in certain segments of the market.
The trend, which was also reflected in property website MyHome’s latest report this week, has been linked to a contraction in real wages on the back of inflation and two European Central Bank interest rate hikes.
The bank is expected to raise rates again in December in a bid to quell the current pickup in inflation.
The CSO’s figures indicated that the median price (middle value) paid for a house in the 12 months to August was €400,000.
The highest median price was €685,000 in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, while the lowest price was €199,000 in Longford.
High prices at the upper end of the market tend to distort the average which is why statisticians consider median prices – the point at which half of all homes sold were more expensive and half cost less – more reflective of the overall market.
“There’s no doubt that the heat has been coming out of the housing market since the start of this year and today’s report confirms that this trend is continuing, with the rate of house price growth slowing further,” Sorcha Timoney, mortgage team manager with NFP Ireland, said.
“Despite the cooling in the housing market, national house prices are still 28.2 per cent above the peak of the Celtic Tiger years, meaning that for many people, house prices are still unaffordable,” she said.
“The cooling in house price growth has been more pronounced in the capital, which suggests that many first-time buyers continue to be priced out of Dublin and [have] to look further afield,” Timoney said.
“The Help-to-Buy scheme’s €500,000 price ceiling means that many first-time buyers have no choice but to look beyond Dublin,” she said.
In the 12 months to August, the latest CSO numbers indicate that house prices nationally rose by 4.9 per cent while apartment prices increased by 6.6 per cent.
In Dublin, house prices grew by 3.3 per cent, and apartment prices were up by 5.7 per cent. Outside of the capital, house prices were up by 6 per cent while apartment prices rose by 8.6 per cent.
The regions outside Dublin that saw the largest growth in house prices were the Border (Cavan, Donegal, Leitrim, Monaghan, and Sligo) at 9.1 per cent, and the Midlands (Laois, Longford, Offaly, and Westmeath) at 8.8 per cent.
MyHome, which assesses trends in asking prices via a select sample of properties on its website, estimated that headline price inflation slowed to 3.9 per cent between July and September.
It also noted that asking prices nationally fell by 1.4 per cent in the third quarter compared with the previous three months.