House prices in Galway up 40 per cent since pandemic

The cost of housing in Galway City has increased by 40 per cent since the Covid-19 pandemic, a new report has revealed.

The latest Daft.ie House Price Report shows that the average price of a house in the city now stands at €388,604.

This represents an increase of 0.2 per cent in the past three months, and a 4 per cent increase on this time last year.

Such increases mean that Galway has the second highest housing prices of any city in the country, albeit far behind Dublin’s average of €475,105.

However, Galway’s prices are significantly higher than the likes of Cork (€354,307), Limerick (€292,437) and Waterford (€249,792).

Meanwhile, the average cost of a house in Co. Galway now stands at €301,410, which represents an increase of 2.6 per cent in the last three months, and a 7.2 per cent increase on this time last year.

This makes Galway the most expensive county in Connacht for property buyers, with Mayo, Sligo and Roscommon all experiencing lower prices.

As well as that, the average cost of a newly-built house in the county stands at €423,750 – the highest such figure of any county that doesn’t border Dublin.

Nationally, the average cost of housing now stands at €344,828, representing an increase of 6.2 per cent on this time last year.

Speaking after the publishing of the report, Ronan Lyons, Associate Professor in Economics at Trinity College Dublin said: “The figures in this latest Sales Report give further support to the suspicion that the recovery of the second-hand market in Ireland from the double hit of the early 2020s is likely to take time.

“It was, first, upended by the Covid-19 pandemic and the associated lockdowns. The stock on the market collapsed, falling to below 12,400 by April 2021 – at which point restrictions started to ease.

“But as the Irish economy, and indeed the world economy, opened back up again, inflation returned.

“This brought a policy response, in the form of higher interest rates. And that was the second factor to disrupt the market, which had by that stage gotten used to very low interest rates.”

Mr Lyons went on to outline the importance of housing supply meeting the current demand.

“The volume of new construction, however, is something that can be shaped by public policy. The Government can take some credit for overseeing a doubling of the professional construction sector in the last few years.

“But the true number of homes needed each year, if the housing deficit is to be addressed as well as new needs, is close to twice what was built last year.

“Ensuring housing supply is responsive to underlying requirements will very likely be the dominant issue for the next government as it has been for this one,” he concluded.

The Daft Report was first launched in 2005 and is now Ireland’s longest running house price report.

Daft.ie collect a vast amount of data on the Irish property market, aiming to help all actors in the property market make informed decisions about buying and selling.

The full report can be viewed here.