THE COST OF buying a house rose by €1,000 per month in 2018, new figures reveal.
The latest report from property website Daft.ie puts the average price nationwide in the final quarter of the year at €254,000.
This is down 1.1% on the previous quarter, but reflects an increase from the same time last year of 5.5%.
House prices grew at their lowest rate since the market bottomed out in 2013.
This figure compares to a rate 12.8% in 2014 and between 8% and 9% in 2015, 2016, and 2017.
The fall in the growth of prices was particularly noticeable in Dublin, where it fell from 11.7% in 2017 to just 2.9% in 2018.
Cork saw an increase from last year of 0.7%, to 5.8% in 2018. Inflation also increased in Limerick from 6.9% to 9.8%.
Waterford held steady at 8.6%, and Galway rose by 6.3%, compare to 8.1% in 2017.
Ronan Lyons, economist at Trinity College Dublin and author of the report, contrasted the current rate of house price inflation with that of the 2000s:
“During the 2000s bubble and crash, the laws of supply and demand were secondary in the housing market to credit market shocks.
Not least because of the Central Bank’s mortgage rules, the market this decade has returned to the more fundamental drivers of supply and demand.
“Since 2013, demand has been strong but supply weak. The increase in homes being built – especially estate houses – in the last 18 months, though, has helped cool down inflation, in particular in the Greater Dublin area, where construction activity is focused.”
Lyons added that the hope for the housing system is that the rate of new homes being built increases and to spread to urban areas other than Dublin.
This is already starting to happen: The report also reveals the first year-end increase in availability of housing in a decade, up 10% compared to 2017, and while new housing was mostly focused on Dublin earlier in the year, it has now spread to other areas.
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