Property market stabilising in Dublin

Further evidence of the stabilisation of the Dublin property market is contained in new data released today.

Property prices in south County Dublin rose by 3 per cent in the last quarter of 2012, when compared with the same period in 2011.

This is the first such increase noted since 2007 and is one of a number of indicators of a stabilising market in Dublin contained in new figures from online websites MyHome.ieand Daft.ie.

According to MyHome.ie, the asking price for houses in Dublin fell by 1.6 per cent in the final quarter of last year, reversing the rise of identical magnitude identified in the previous quarter.

Annual rate

However, the annual rate of decline for the capital for 2012 came out at 12 per cent, the lowest rate for Dublin in four years.

"While we saw relatively large house price declines in the first six months [of 2012], this gave away to significant moderation in the rate of decline nationally in the latter half of the year and to price stabilisation in Dublin," said Caroline Kelleher, from DKM Economic Consultants, author of the latest Property Barometer report for MyHome.ie. An analysis of transactions on the Property Price Register showed the number of transactions in 2012 was just under 21,000, up 15.4 per cent on the 2011 figure, but almost unchanged from the 2010 total.

Nationally, asking prices for houses declined by 2.9 per cent in the final quarter of last year, bringing the annual rate of decline to 14.8 per cent, according to MyHome.ie. There was a marked difference between the time it took for properties to be sold in cities and in rural areas.

According to the managing director of MyHome.ie, Angela Keegan, sale-agreed times of three months in Limerick, four in Dublin and 5½ in Galway contrasted with 10½ months in Munster, nine in Ulster and Connacht, and seven in Leinster (excluding Dublin).

For economist Ronan Lyons, who wrote the Daft.iereport, the year-on-year decline identified for Dublin for 2012, of just 2 per cent, was evidence that the market in the capital is "very close to stable". The figure for 2010 was 22 per cent.

Different outcomes

The two websites use different methodologies and this accounts for their different outcomes. Nationally, the year-on-year decline for 2012 was 9 per cent, as compared with 18 per cent at the end of 2011, according to Daft.ie. This showed that nationally, the property market was "stabilising but not yet stabilised", Mr Lyon said.

He said the 3 per cent rise in house prices in south county Dublin recorded for the last quarter of 2012, as against the same quarter in 2011, was the first such rise in five years. He said it was natural to expect south county Dublin, and city centre Dublin (where prices rose marginally over the year), to act as “lead areas” in any stabilisation of the market.