House prices are expected to rise by around 4% this year, according to the latest analysis from Bank of Ireland.<\/p>\n
That would represent a moderation on the 7% inflation in housing prices last year.<\/p>\n
Properties have continued to sell at a premium in April and May, the bank noted, with median sale prices remaining 6.7% above asking, “demonstrating fierce competition among buyers into the summer”.<\/p>\n
MyHome asking prices rose by 1% in the first three months of 2026 to a median of \u20ac385,000, representing a 4.7% year-on-year increase.<\/p>\n
Softer growth “is often the case in the first quarter of the calendar year”, said BOI’s Chief Economist Conall McCoille, adding that properties where selling 6-7% above asking price points to prices rising further in the coming months.<\/p>\n
However, many borrowers are reaching the top of their affordability, while more moderate wage growth is tempering the amount they can spend.<\/p>\n
Market activity is expanding, with residential transactions rising 6.6% year-on-year in the first three months of the year with a further increase of around 3% projected by BOI in the second quarter.<\/p>\n
Growth is being driven almost entirely by new-build properties, which saw a 30% surge in transactions, while existing home sales declined for a fourth consecutive year.<\/p>\n
This divergence reflects a structural challenge as existing homeowners are increasingly reluctant to move amid tight supply and competitive buying conditions, according to the BOI’s analysis.<\/p>\n
When it comes to the delivery of new homes, BOI described the country’s homebuilding sector as “outperforming expectations”.<\/p>\n
Housing completions reached 38,191 in the year to the first quarter of 2026, with 7,856 units delivered in the first three months of the year alone.<\/p>\n
Despite some if it reflecting catch-up activity, these dynamics could lead to completions of 40,000 units in 2026, exceeding earlier projections of 37,500, BOI said.<\/p>\n
In its outlook, the lender said that new housing supply “is finally scaling up”, but “tight conditions in the second-hand market and strong first-time buyer demand mean price pressures are likely to persist”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"House prices are expected to rise by around 4% this year, according to the latest analysis from Bank…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":606498,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[84,1294,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-606497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=606497"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606497\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/606498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=606497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=606497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=606497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}