PROPERTY: Asking price of average three bed Laois home hits €200,000

The price of a three bedroom home in Laois has hit €200,000, a new report by a property website has claimed.

Meanwhile the number of houses on the market has dropped.

"The median asking price for a property in the county is now €200,000. This means prices have risen by €10,000 compared with this time last year," say MyHome.ie

The asking price of a 3-bed semi-detached houserose by €7,450 (8.1%) over the three months of April to June, up to €222,500. It means a rise in the past 12 months of €14,950 on a Laois 3-bed semi.

Meanwhile, the asking price for a 4-bed semi-detached house in Laois stayed flat over the quarter at €237,000.  However this price is up by €27,000 compared to this time last year.

There were 192 properties for sale in Laois at the end of Q2 2023 – a decrease of 5% over the quarter.

The average time for a property to go sale agreed in the county after being placed up for sale now stands at just over two and a half months.

The report is for Q2 2023, in association with Davy

Nationally, there are still too few houses for sale. 

The author of the report is Conall MacCoille, Chief Economist at Davy.

“Asking prices rose by 4% in Q2 2023, a healthy gain ahead of the busy summer trading season and following three consecutive declines. Housing demand remains resilient. There were €1.27 billion of mortgage approvals in May, a fresh record high. This represents 11.5% volume growth in the numbers of homebuyers with mortgage approval.

“The average approval for house purchase was €298,600 in May, up 3.5% on the year. Despite the European Central Bank’s (ECB) rate hikes, homebuyers are still taking on more debt, pointing to upward pressure on house prices in H2 2023.”

Mr MacCoille added that supply was still an issue but a rising rate of housing starts was encouraging.

“The reality is that Ireland’s housing market remains exceptionally tight. The average time to sale agreed in Q2 2023 was still close to a historic low of 3.3 months. There are currently just 14,000 properties listed for sale on MyHome, still well down from pre-pandemic levels which exceeded 20,000.”

However, the added that “there were 30,900 housing completions in the year to Q1 2023 – well ahead of expectations. Furthermore, there were 13,000 housing starts in the first five months of 2023, up 7.4% on 2022 – this growth looks to entirely reflect apartment construction in Dublin.”

PROPERTY WATCH: Huge 4,000sqft Laois house for €725,000

He said that the Irish housing market should prove more resilient than its peers, particularly the UK.  “This is because of the enormous imbalance between supply and demand and stimulus such as the Equity Loan Scheme and the decision to loosen the mortgage lending rules.

“Certainly, a fall in Irish house prices in 2023 is still plausible and cannot be ruled out, given the prospect of further ECB rate hikes, but it now looks less likely. We have left our forecast for asking price inflation unchanged at 1.5% through 2023 but have revised up our forecast for housing completions to 29,500.”