2023-05-02 12:45:24
House prices in Ireland posted their worst first quarter in a decade as rising interest rates made financing more expensive. Sales prices fell 0.3% from the previous quarter, according to Daft.ie. It was the first time since 2013 that prices fell at the beginning of the year and the biggest drop in the first quarter since a 2.4% drop in early 2012.
The drop is the latest sign that the Irish property market is beginning to deflate, after recent mortgage approval data and house price figures from the country’s Central Bureau of Statistics showed a decline in recent months.
A drop in prices in the first quarter is more significant than in any other quartersaid Ronan Lyons, an author of the report and an economist at Trinity College in Dublin. “Normally you see a slight drop in prices in the last three months of the year and then you usually see a rebound when the new year starts,” he said in an interview.
Sales prices have now fallen for two quarters in a row. Lyons said he expected a “modest” decline of less than 5% over the next six months.
Others, like the Professor Kieran McQuinn from the Institute for Economic and Social ResearchThey said house prices may still rise modestly over the course of the year unless interest rates continue to rise. The institute expects the number of new homes to fall from 30,000 last year to around 27,000 in 2023.
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