Dublin property prices up 1.6%, says website

PROPERTY PRICES in Dublin rose by 1.6 per cent in the third quarter of this year, representing the first quarterly rise in six years, according to data compiled by property website MyHome.ie. However, rival site Daft.iereported a 0.5 per cent fall in prices in the period.

Nationally, house prices continued to fall, but at a slower pace than in previous quarters.

The price of houses nationally fell by 2.2 per cent in the third quarter. This is less severe than the fall of 3.2 per cent recorded in the previous quarter, and the 7.2 per cent in the first, suggesting some moderation in the rate of decline.

Data published by property website daft.ieshows Dublin property prices also performed better than the national average. Its data shows Dublin asking prices did fall in the third quarter, but only by 0.5 per cent, compared to a fall of 4.5 per cent nationally. However, prices in Dublin city centre fell sharply between June and September and are now 62 per cent below peak levels.

Munster experienced the steepest fall in property prices since the onset of the downturn, according to daft.ie, with property prices falling 6.8 per cent between June and September.

According to MyHome.ie– which is owned by The Irish Times Ltd – the average price of a property in Dublin is €240,000, 55 per cent below the peak of the market in the last quarter of 2006.

Nationally, the weighted average asking price is €207,000, 50 per cent lower than at the peak.

Both daft.ieand MyHome.iebase their analysis on data from their own respective websites.

While MyHome.iebases its research on all the properties available on its website, Daft.ieonly uses properties that have been listed for the first time during the period in question, or have changed their asking price.

Daft has just over 50,000 properties on its website, while MyHome.iehas about 44,000.

According to daft.ie, one in three of all properties sold within three months. Other properties struggled to find a buyer.

MyHome.iepresented a regional analysis of sale times, noting that "sale agreed" was reached within five months in Dublin, while in the rest of Leinster, this reached eight months.

In Munster the average time was 10 months and in Connaught and Ulster it was 11 months.

Daft.ieand MyHome.ienoted the number of Dublin properties for sale on their websites had fallen. According to daft.ie, while there were 6,000 properties on the Dublin market in late 2011, there were now fewer than 4,000.

MyHome.ienoted its Dublin stock fell by 20 per cent from 5,960 to 4,780 in the space of three months. "That kind of fall is something we have not seen in many years," Ms Keenan said.