Is the Irish property market about to boil over?

With year-on year property price inflation climbing above 15 per cent for the first time in seven years, according to data from the Central Statistics Office published this week, the housing market is heating up. But has it reached boiling point—and, if it has, will buyers be burned again?

Irish Times Economics Correspondent Eoin Burke-Kennedy points out that the property cycle has “three distinct phases—boom, slump, recovery”—and suggests that Ireland is about to enter a slump phase. He points to “clear signs” that the Covid-induced price surge has reached a tipping point, with higher living costs and higher interest rates now likely to act as a restraint on buyers.

In today’s episode of the Irish Times In the News podcast, Eoin Burke-Kennedy talks about what the cycle could mean for would-be homeowners, and what interest-rate hikes coming down the tracks will mean for mortgage holders, particularly the 300,000 people with tracker mortgages, who have benefited from interest rates of little more than 1 per cent for the guts of a decade. And with supply improving as builders ramp up developments, are the prospects improving for people trying to find a home to call their own?