Asking prices in Ireland increased by just 0.3% year on year in the 12 months to the end of September and fell by 2.8% quarter on quarter, and are expected to reach zero by the end of 2019.
This took the national average asking price to €269,000, according to the latest asking price index from Myhome in conjunction with Davy, the company that produces quarterly reports on asking prices for residential properties.
In Dublin they were up by 0.4% year on year but fell by 1.4% quarter on quarter to €376,000, while in the rest of Ireland they increased by 0.6% on an annual basis and fell by 3.3% quarter by quarter to €223,000.
The author of the report, Conall MacCoille, chief economist at Davy, said that while the third quarter of the year shows a softening in prices, the decline of 2.8% in the national figure in this report is higher than usual.
He explained that the slowdown is linked to the CBI macro prudential guidelines on mortgage lending and Brexit. ‘We believe it primarily reflects constraints on home buyers leverage from the Central Bank of Ireland’s mortgage lending rules, now accompanied by the uncertainty of Brexit,’ he added.
He also pointed out that the slowdown does not imply that housing supply has caught up with demand, adding that there were 19,300 housing completions in the year to June 2019. ‘But we believe natural household formation is at least 30,000 per annum if not higher, well in excess of current home building levels,’ he said.
Angela Keegan, managing director of MyHome.ie noted that while asking price growth is softening, other key indicators are increasing, such as sales, rents, and mortgage lending is up while there was an increase of some 6% in the number of new properties on the market.
In total there were some 23,700 properties listed on the site in September which is 4.7% up on the year and is the higher number of properties listed since the middle of 2015, of which 10,846 were new homes.
