17th July 2020
Residential property prices fell for the second month in a row during May, according to the latest figures from the Central Statistics Office (CSO), while the level of activity in the market dropped again.
Prices nationwide had fallen by 0.1% during April, at the height of COVID-19 restrictions, and dropped by the same percentage in May as restrictions began to be eased.
The annual rate of price growth in May eased to 0.3% from 0.7% in April.
During May, prices in Dublin fell by 0.1%, with house prices unchanged and apartment prices down 0.5%.
Overall, residential property prices in Dublin were unchanged compared with May 2019.
Elsewhere, the monthly figures were identical to Dublin’s: overall prices down 0.1%, with house prices flat and apartments 0.5% lower. Compared with a year earlier, however, prices outside the capital were up 0.7%.
The CSO figures show that the value of transactions in the housing market has almost halved since the pandemic restrictions began.
Residential property deals were worth just over €1 billion in March, before dropping to €658.7m in April and falling further to €535.2m in May.
The volume of home-buying also dropped sharply, with just 1,937 purchases recorded in May, compared with 2,351 in April and 3,598 in March.