RESIDENTIAL PROPERTY PRICES increased by 15.2% nationally in the 12 months to March 2022, according to today’s Residential Property Price Index released by the Central Statistics Office (CSO).

It’s the sharpest rate of annual price growth in the housing market since a spike of 16.8% in March 2015.

Overall, residential property prices are still 2.1% lower than their highest level in 2007.

Dublin residential property prices are 10.1% lower than their February 2007 peak, while residential property prices in the Rest of Ireland are 3.3% lower than their May 2007 peak.

Between March 2021 and March 2022, prices in Dublin rose by 12.7% and prices outside Dublin went up by 17.3%.

The Border region saw the biggest increase with prices jumping up 25.1%, while house prices in the Mid-East increased by 15.2%.

Households paid a median or mid-point price of €285,000 for a residential property in the 12 months to March 2022. 

The lowest median price paid for a dwelling was €136,500 in Longford, while the highest was €601,000 in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown.

Existing houses accounted for 3,288 (83.9%) of the dwelling purchases filed with the Revenue Commissioners in March 2022, the balance of 630 (16.1%) were new dwellings.

The highest house price growth in Dublin was in Dublin City at 13.8%, while South Dublin saw a rise of 11.3%.

Sinn Féin spokesperson on Housing Eoin Ó Broin said today that this report was evidence that the private market cannot meet the demand for new homes and that the state must intervene.

“The latest CSO Residential Property Price Index report shows that property prices are continuing to rise across the State.”

“Housing affordability has gotten worse since Fianna Fáil got back into power. The Minister for Housing has failed to grasp this as thousands of ordinary people struggle to secure an affordable home,” he said.

“As a solution he offers another mad developer lead scheme which will just lock in high prices and provides no affordability dividend for the purchaser.

The latest Daft.ie quarterly rent report released Thursday shows that on 1 May this year, there were just 851 homes available to rent nationwide – down 77% year-on-year. 

Irish Examiner reported that there were just 131 homes available to rent in Munster at the start of this month, the lowest ever level recorded.

There were 64 homes to rent in Cork, Galway, Limerick and Waterford cities combined on 1 MaY, compared to more than 350 during 2019.