House prices still too high, Cork TD says

PROPERTY prices in Cork are still “way too high for young people looking to buy their first home” despite a slight drop in the final quarter of 2023, a TD has said.

In Cork city, the average price of a home is now €337,500, down 1.1% when comparing quarter four of 2023 with quarter three, but up 3.7% compared with 2022. Meanwhile in the county, the average price is €286,869, a drop of 1.9% on quarter three but an annual increase of 6.4%. The findings were contained in the latest Daft.ie House Price Report.

“Whatever way you look at this — a small decline in price at the end of the year, or a significant rise in price over the year as a whole — house prices are still way too high for young people looking to buy their first home,” People Before Profit/Solidarity TD Mick Barry, said.

“The Government are failing to deliver affordable housing and I think they will pay a heavy price for this when the next election comes around.”

According to the Daft report, supply continued to remain at low levels in Q4 with the number of homes available to buy in Munster on December 1 at just over 3,100, down 23% year-on-year and the lowest total since early 2022.

Speaking to The Echo, Fine Gael TD Colm Burke, said labour shortages are a challenge in boosting housing supply.

“The biggest problem ... is we have plenty of planning permissions granted, but the problem is getting the workforce to be available to build.... we don’t have the same level of people in the building industry that we had say in 2000-2008.

“It is improving and we’re doing an awful lot more through apprenticeships and all of that, but we still have a long road to travel as regards building up that workforce and making sure we can get people to stay in that area.”

Fianna Fáil TD Pádraig O’Sullivan, said housing supply is increasing, but that significant progress takes time.

“We are recovering from a decade of undersupply. The only way to bring prices down and increase availability of houses is to increase supply. This will take time, but the Government has been doing this. The year-on-year increase in prices is declining albeit there is still an increase in prices.

“This is showing the myriad of interventions such as the shared equity scheme and the vacant refurbishment grant is gradually having an effect,” he said.

Mr O’Sullivan also pointed to a recent Euroconstruct report which stated construction output in Ireland was forecast to grow by 3.2% in 2023 and 4.4% in 2024. In comparison, the report from the independent construction market forecasting network said that on average construction activity in Europe was expected to fall by 1.7% in 2023 and 2.1% in 2024.