House prices down in Clare

Property prices outside Dublin registered their first quarterly increase since 2007 but not in Clare, which experienced the biggest fall in asking prices in Munster in the past year.

ACCORDING to the latest Daft.ie House Price Report, the average asking price for properties outside of Dublin increased during the first three months of the year; the first quarterly rise since mid-2007 according to the report. Nationally, the average asking price is now €177,000, up 3.5% from the same time last year and down 53% from the peak.

In Clare, however, prices in early 2014 were 9% lower than the same time in 2013, compared to a fall the previous year of 12%. The average house price here is now €130,000, 58% below peak levels.

The latest figures show that the greatest fall year-on-year in asking prices here is in the one-bedroom apartment category which has fallen to €44,000, a drop of nearly 19%. The prices asked for five-bed detached homes has fallen by more than 13% to €184,000 on average.

The average asking prices here for two-, three- and four-bedroom homes is now €56,000, €81,000 and €168,000 respectively, falls of 11.1%, 10.7% and 8.1%.

Prices in Dublin are 15% higher than the same stage last year, with annual increases also recorded in Cork and Galway city centres of 2% and 3% respectively.  Although experiencing increases in the latest quarter, both Waterford and Limerick city centre prices are down from the first quarter of last year by 1% and 6% respectively.

The total number of properties on the market in now just over 33,000, down from a peak of 62,000 in mid-2009. In Dublin, the number of properties available for sale is below 2,300. According to the official Property Price Register, there were over 3,800 properties purchased in the last three months of 2013 within Dublin.

Commenting on the report, Economist with Daft.ie, Ronan Lyons said: “While those based in the capital will understandably focus on rising inflation in property prices, perhaps the more significant development is elsewhere. For the first time since 2007, the average asking price outside Dublin rose on a quarterly basis. This may the first indications that a better match is being found between demand which will be boosted by the fall in unemployment, and supply which has eased back considerably in the last two years.”

County Limerick saw similar percentage drops in each of the categories while asking prices in Galway County were lower than Clare in all categories except one-bedroom apartments.