Latest updates on house prices, supply, construction, mortgages and interest rates:
House Prices –
Residential property prices increased by 8.0% year-on-year (y-o-y) in February.
Prices in Dublin rose by 7.1% and outside Dublin by 8.7%.
MyHome data shows asking prices increased by 8.1% y-o-y in Q1, implying continued house prices gains into 2025.
The market is tight and the median gap between asking price and sale agreed is about 7% with one in seven homes selling for at least 20% over asking.
Home Availability –
The number of properties listed for sale on MyHome was 10,800 in March, a historic low. Well down on the levels above 20,000 pre-pandemic.
Property is selling at an exceptionally quick pace. Average time to sale agreed is 11 weeks in Q1, again close to record lows.
Limited stock for sale is hampering activity, despite robust demand.
There were about 61,000 transactions in 2024, down about 3% from 2023.
A lack of property for sale is holding back the market, particularly amongst movers.
Cash buyers have been relatively steady in recent quarters and account for around one in three household purchases.
Mortgage Market –
Demand remains high for mortgages with annual increases on draw downs and approvals.
The average mortgage for house purchase in Ireland was just under €325,000 in Q1, up 8%.
There were 9,190 drawdowns in Q1 2025, up 10% y-o-y.
FTB drawdowns were up 8.3%, movers up 9.2% on the year but it should be noted that Q1 2024 was poor, boosting the year-on[1]year comparison.
There has also been a pick up in remortgaging activity, which is up 19%.
There was 11,307 mortgage approvals in Q1, up 6.4% y-o-y. Approvals for house purchase were up 3.4% with the average approval up 10% to €336,000.
There has been a strong uptick in remortgaging interest with approvals up 30% y-o-y.
Residential Construction Activity –
Housing output will be up from 30,300 last year to around 36,000 this year.
5,938 completions in Q1 2025, up 2% on the year.
House completions were up down 2% on the year, to 4,157 while apartment completions rebounded, up 13%.
Total completions over the 12 months to Q1 was circa. 30,400, well short of housing demand.
Completions do not appear to be accelerating in line with the surge in housing starts, which were artificially inflated to 69,000 last year due to temporary waivers.
Homebuilding is likely to expand in 2025, with ‘4Dublin Pipeline’ figures suggesting an improvement in the capital at least.
However, given the uncertain outlook we think housing output will be up from 30,300 last year to around 36,000 this year.
Affordability – interest rates –
Interest rate cuts have happened in Q1 2025 across tracker mortgage rates but also non tracker rates which represent the majority of home mortgages. Worth noting however that there is still a huge differential on rates across the market – at doddl we review rates across all major lenders to ensure you get lowest available rates.
The ECB cut rates again at their April meeting, by 25bps, taking the deposit rate to 2.25% and the main refinancing rate to 2.4%. The ECB has now cut rates by a cumulative 175bps since the start of last summer.
The recent changes in US trade policy threatens to subdue growth globally and caused markets to reprice interest rate changes.
The ECB is now expected to cut by 25bps at the start of summer and again by another 25bps in H2.
First time buyers have an increasing appetite for credit with central bank data show the median first time buyer’s loan-to-income ratio rose to 3.5% in H1 2024
Source: Statistics provided by BOI Economic Research Unit, Housing Update, April 2025
