8 hours Ago By Mark May
THE Irish property market is “vulnerable to any sudden economic shock”, a new report has found.The latest quarterly house price report from MyHome has found that the average asking price was up 8.1 per cent to €375,000 this year.
Ms Geary said the housing market could be exposed to a negative economic shockMyHome.ieIn Dublin it was €450,000 while sellers in the rest of the country were demanding €315,000.Just 10,800 homes were available for sale on the property site in March 2025 – a fresh record low.
Joanne Geary, Managing Director of MyHome, said the property market could be exposed to a sudden negative economic shock especially if it were to disproportionately hit employment in the high-paid multinational sector.She said: “As the threat of a trade war with the US looms, our reliance on certain sectors of the economy will come into sharp focus.“The housing market is vulnerable to any economic headwinds, so it is imperative that the Government limits the impact if at all possible while also continuing to ramp up housing supply.
”However, if a trade war can be avoided the author of the report, Conall MacCoille, Chief Economist at Bank of Ireland, said that “all signs point to further growth”.MacCoille added that their forecast of five per cent inflation for 2025 “may even prove to be conservative”.He said: “The average mortgage approval was €318,400 in January, up 7 per cent on 2024 – pointing to further price gains, while the extent of the tightening housing market is still striking.
“At end-March, just 10,800 homes were listed for sale on MyHome, a fresh record low. “Just one in every two hundred homes in Ireland is currently listed for sale. “Notably, first-time-buyer mortgage drawdowns rose to 26,200 in 2024, their highest level since 2007 but mover drawdowns fell to just 9,000 loans, now 20 per cent below pre-Covid-19 levels.
”MacCoille also warned of increasingly stretched affordability in the market.The average Irish residential property transaction of €404,000 was an eight-times multiple of average annual earnings of €51,000 – the most stretched Irish house prices have become relative to income since 2009.He said: “The 67,000 housing starts recorded in 2024 clearly didn’t reflect underlying activity levels, but rather developers rushing to avail of waivers on local authority and water infrastructure charges.
“That said, it is worth remembering that completions of scheme houses rose to 16,200 in 2024, or including one-off houses, to 21,600.“In both cases these are the highest levels attained since the Celtic Tiger era.“The disappointing 30,000 completion figure for 2024 reflected the 8,763 apartment completions, down 24 per cent on the year.
“However, 15,900 apartments, equivalent to at least two years’ supply, were still under construction as of September 2024. “In summary, we would still expect some pick-up in housing completions in 2025.”The latest annual asking price was up 8.
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