THIS WEEK THINGS are proving difficult for students who are still without accommodation with university start dates looming.

At the same time, new figures from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) have shown house prices across the country are still increasing.

Here is all the week’s property news.

The Big Movers

Students search continues

Around the country thousands of students are still struggling to find a place to live as they battle with high rents and a shortage of supply.

A number of services have emerged specifically to try and tackle this, including the Union of Students in Ireland’s (USI) room finder and Daft.ie’s student-specific accommodation tool.

Since last year, the cost of a single bedroom in some parts of the country has gone up by 25%. The USI has previously described the accommodation crisis as a “barrier to education”.

On the rise 

There was another spike in property prices last month, but the rate of inflation in Dublin dropped below 10% for the first time in two years.

Across the country, prices went up by 0.9% in July, up 9.4% from last year. In Dublin in July prices went up by 0.7%, an increase of 9% on last year’s prices.

Interestingly, a trend was observed in Dublin in which the price of apartments is increasing at a much faster rate than the price of houses.

Across the country residential property prices still remain 36.9% lower than their 2007 peak.

Under Construction

• This week we found out that the average first-time buyer in Ireland is now aged 33.
• Information has emerged about some of the lavish perks that builders received from banks prior to the crash. Here are just some of them:

List of corporate hospitality provided to senior management at Cosgrave Development Oireachtas.ie Oireachtas.ie

• The Irish Times has reported that an application has been made by Grant Thornton for the development of the Glenkerrin Homes site in Howth. 

Des Res

This week Business Insider has taken a look at the $50,000 (€44,000)-a-week rental property that is being used by US presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton for brief respite from the campaign trail.