Whether you’re buying or selling property Buying or selling property there could be good news this morning. That’s according to the latest report by My Home.ie. In terms of buying, in this latest report is that national asking prices are up over 7%, so 7.3% in the year, and that’s the fastest growth of house price inflation in the last two years. This speaks of strength in the economy.What’s driving those prices is the sustained strength in the Irish labor market, wage growth is up and mortgage lending rules and the loosening of those rules is having an impact on people being able to stretch themselves and to borrow more money.
That’s according to Joanne Geary CEO of MyHome.ie who said that on the flip side of buying , the main reason that house prices are increasing is due to the lack of supply.
Ms Geary said, “So, nationally, where we see the supply issue is that in the last quarter, there was 12,500 homes available for sale at the end of June on MyHome.ie, that is almost down to the lowest level that we were at during COVID. So, we’re down about 11% in terms of properties available to buy in the last year or so. So, demand continues to be very strong. That’s driving house prices, mainly from a very strong labor market, and supply continues to be constrained”.
Although, we have seen in the first five months of the year, some good news in relation to housing starts, it’s unlikely that those houses won’t come to the market for another number of months. #
When it comes to Co. Wexford we asked Ms Geary for an update on what is happening here. Ms Geary said, “Well, look, I think in Wexford, what we’re seeing in the quarter is that prices are
steady, they didn’t move up or down, so the median asking price for a property in the county is now still €275,000 euro. However, that does mean that prices have gone up in the year.
So while they stayed steady in the quarter, they have risen by €15,000 euro compared to this time last year. So a three-bed semi-detached, for example, the median asking price is €235,000 euro.
That was up €10,000 euro in the year. And a four-bed is running at €280,000, that’s up €5,000 euro in the year. So prices with the state steady in the last quarter, you know, but certainly up overall if I look back over the last 12 months.
There is good news for buyers, though, in Wexford, as there’s been a good increase in properties available for sale in the county. There are currently 63 properties for sale in Wexford on MyHome.ie and that’s up 13% over the quarter. So there is more stock available to buy more choice for buyers out there, and think overall that’s good news.
When asked if there were any pockets in particular within the county that were faring better, Ms Geary said, “Well, a lot of this would be down to the new housing start that would have happened
a number of months ago & if I look back to earlier in the year, there was pretty good numbers of being registered in terms of Wexford, it would be your main commutures and towns in the county where those housing starts would be. That is only likely to improve over the next number of months. So there is more stock coming. We can see in the year what that looks like nationally is over 50,000 units. So that’s good in the year, 32,000 units in the first five months. So look, we know here that to see more of a functional housing market where we see prices
pretty much running in line with labor growth, we need to see a lot more supply onto the market. And we’re starting to see it, but still not enough to meet demand.”
According to Ms Geary there’s also been a rise in earnings – 4.7%, that’s over €50,000 in an average earning wage. That translates into a 4.6% rise in the average mortgage approval
value to €313,000 being the average mortgage.
When asked overall the view for the Co. Wexford Ms Geary said, “I think I think what this report speaks to is a very strong economy. What we need is more supply in the housing market to fulfill the demand from that strong labour market that we have. We’re certainly starting to see the evidence of that stock and that supply starting to we know from Tishuk Simon Harris that his ambitions for the government is that we build an excess of €50,000 a year. I think from our data, we’re seeing that that’s likely to be somewhere like 37 or 38,000 units by the end of the year.
That’s a good improvement of where we would have been in previous years. Obviously, more still needs to be done to get up to that 50,000 plus figure and certainly we’re seeing some good news coming through from the housing for all policies as well in terms of different types of property being delivered. I think there is some good news, the economy is in great shape. We’re starting to see supply come to the markets, but we need to see more of this.”
