Irish house prices recorded their third successive monthly fall in November, according to an Irish Permanent survey.
The abrupt end of Ireland's property boom of the late 1990s has seen house price growth in 2001 fall to less than a third of the rate achieved last year, according to the latest monthly Irish Permanent House Price Index report.
"At the start of this year very few people would have predicted that national house price growth would be in single figures - yet that is clearly now going to be the case," said Irish Permanent head of marketing Mr Niall O'Grady.
Prices in some parts of Dublin had increased fourfold or more since 1996.
Prices rose nearly 40 per cent in 1998 alone, fuelled by a booming economy which lured thousands of migrants and returning Irish emigrants.
According to the survey, house prices nationally rose 5.3 per cent during the first 11 months of the year, compared to a growth rate of more than 18.8 per cent during the same period in 2000.
House prices fell 0.4 per cent in November - the third successive monthly decrease -compared with growth of two per cent in November last year.
The average price paid for a house in Dublin in November was £187,989 (€ 238.710), while the equivalent price for a house outside Dublin was £127,022 (€161.256).
The slowdown is sharpest at the top end of the market with the average price per square foot for Dublin property in the £300,000 ((€ 380.921) and over bracket falling eight per cent so far this year, against a 5.1 per cent increase for houses in the lower price ranges.