Houses selling for more than asking price as property market continues to soar

Houses in Ireland are now selling for over 3.5pc more than their asking prices, which are already high, as the property market continues to soar. 

The latest house price survey conducted by website Daft.ie shows that the typical transaction price in the first quarter of this year was heading towards 4pc above the listed price.

Over the 12-year period from 2010 a typical property would sell for 0.3pc above its listing price – but the gap has now widened considerably.

By contrast, during the first two years of that period, 2010-2012, properties sold on average for 10pc less than their initial listed price.

"The last three quarters have seen greater market heat - as measured by the premium paid by buyers above the listed price - than at any other time since the start of 2010," Ronan Lyons, Trinity College Economics Professor and author of the property price reports for daft.ie explained.

The report is a follow up study to the property price report published by daft.ie earlier in the week which found that asking prices here increased by almost 8.5% in the year to March with a significant gap in the increases being captured in Dublin - where asking prices were up 4% - and the rest of the country, where average price inflation of 12.3% was recorded.

"Prices have increased quarter-on-quarter nationally for seven consecutive quarters since the second quarter of 2020, when Covid 19 had - initially - a negative effect on prices," Mr Lyons said.

"The Daft.ie Report has been going for 64 quarters, since the start of 2006, and in all that time, there has never been a period where prices increased for seven consecutive
quarters," he added.