9% increase in house prices in Ireland in 2024, report reveals

DUBLIN, Ireland: Irish house prices increased by 9 percent in 2024, marking a significant rise in the housing market, according to a new report by Daft.ie.

The report revealed that Dublin remains the most expensive place to buy a home, followed by Cork and Galway. Nationally, the average cost of purchasing a home reached just over 332,000 euros, while in Dublin, the figure soared to nearly 700,000 euros. Cork recorded a 6.3 percent increase in average house prices, now at 347,263 euros, while Galway saw a 9 percent rise, bringing the average cost to 389,742 euros. Other cities also experienced growth, with Limerick's average price rising by 8.2 percent to 284,138 euros, and Waterford's increasing by 6.3 percent to 247,236 euros.

Trinity College Dublin economist Ronan Lyons, the report's author, attributed the price hikes to a persistent imbalance in Ireland's housing market.

"Once again, it is down to weak supply and strong demand," said Lyons. "If the goal of policymakers is to ensure stable housing prices, then this has been the least successful year for policymakers since 2017, when prices rose by roughly the same proportion."

Lyons noted that while demand for housing continues to grow at nearly 5 percent annually, fueled by rising incomes and employment, the supply of new homes has not kept pace.

"The number of newly-built homes transacted in the open market in the first nine months of 2024 was the highest on record since the start of the Property Price Register in 2010," he said. "But, at just over 7,200, it was only marginally higher than the number transacted in 2023-and only 4 percent higher than the 6,950 transacted in the same nine months of 2018, a full six years ago."