“Residential Property Price Growth Slows in August Nationwide”
The rate of increase in residential property prices across the country continued to decelerate in August. Nationally, prices in August showed a 0.9% year-on-year increase, a notable decline compared to the 1.6% rise recorded in July and the slowest rate of growth since November 2020.
Month-on-month data also revealed a weakening trend, with price inflation edging up by 0.3% in August, down from the 0.4% increase observed in July, according to the latest report from the Central Statistics Office.
However, despite the ongoing national upward trend, Dublin experienced a more pronounced dip in home prices, with a 1.9% decrease in the 12 months leading up to August, as opposed to the 1.4% drop in the year to July. This represents the most substantial annual decline in residential property prices in Dublin since October 2012.
Niall Corkery, statistician in the Prices Division of the Central Statistics Office, explained, “In the 12 months to August 2023, house prices in Dublin fell by 2.3%, while apartment prices were down by 0.2%. The highest house price growth in Dublin was in Fingal at 0.2%, while Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown saw a decline of 3.9%.”
Outside of the capital, property prices exhibited a different trajectory, rising by 3.1%. Apartments increased by 1.8% and houses by 3.1% compared to the same month a year ago. Cork and Kerry (South-West) saw the most substantial rise in house prices at 4.4%, while the Midlands region (Laois, Longford, Offaly, and Westmeath) and the West region (Galway, Mayo, and Roscommon) both observed a 2.1% increase.
The Central Statistics Office reported a median price of €320,000 for a home in the year to August. The lowest median price for a house was €159,750 in Longford, while the highest median price was recorded in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown at €634,919.
In August, 4,640 residential property sales were recorded, marking an 8% increase from the same month the previous year. Nationally, residential property prices are now 2.8% higher than their peak during the property boom in April 2007 and have risen by 129.2% from their post-crash low in early 2013.
Additionally, the CSO data indicated that between April and June, prices of new dwellings increased by 11% compared to the same period in 2022, slightly lower than the 11% increase observed in the first quarter. Prices of existing homes in the second quarter were 0.6% higher than in the same period last year.
Goodbody’s chief economist, Dermot O’Leary, suggested that higher-priced areas in Dublin have shown weaker growth over the past year, possibly due to the impact of higher interest rates, with the first decline in mortgage loan demand since the first quarter of 2022. He noted that residential transactions have remained relatively flat in the year to date, with new home transactions up by 2% year-on-year and existing home transactions down by 1%. However, there have been variations over the summer months, with new home transactions declining by 10% year-on-year in the three months to August, while second-hand transactions saw a 2% year-on-year growth, particularly in Dublin, where strong sales were recorded in the summer of 2022.
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