Irish property market ‘vulnerable to EU-US trade war’ says economist 

The Irish property market’s disproportionate reliance on high-income earners working in multinational sectors would see it vulnerable to an EU-US trade war, according to the latest quarterly house-price report from MyHome in association with Bank of Ireland.

The report shows “asking-price inflation continued at robust levels across Munster” with prices up 5% across Co Cork to €300,000, while Cork city saw a 10% increase to €325,000.

The report also looks at prices for different properties, and found that although Dublin and Wicklow prices remained the highest in Ireland, Cork prices were increasing at a faster rate.

The price for a three bed semi-detached house in Cork as of the end of March was €319,000, up 1.3% on to the prices at the end of last year and up 11% on March 2024 prices – this compared to just a 2.6% annual increase in Dublin.

Similarly, the price of a two bed apartment in Cork was €235,000, no change from three months previous but a 6.8% increase annually, while the Dublin annual increase was 3.5%.

Cork had the fourth highest price in Ireland for both a three bed semi-detached house and a two bed apartment, behind Wicklow, Dublin and Galway.

A four bed semi-detached house in Cork was €395,000, the third highest in Ireland after Dublin and Wicklow. This price was the same as the previous quarter but up 3.95% on the previous year.

Nationally, the number of new properties on the market is down 7.4% and the national average asking price is up 4.8% compared to the end of March last year.

The report called for more urban apartments across Ireland, noting that completions for these type of units were down 24% annually.

Commenting on the report, Conall MacCoille, chief economist at Bank of Ireland Group, said that Irish house prices are now eight times average incomes, their most stretched level since 2009.

“The risk here is that Ireland’s relatively thin, illiquid housing market, reliant on those at the top of the income distribution could be exposed to a sudden negative economic shock, such as the risk of a US-EU tariff war, especially if it were to disproportionately hit employment in the high-paid multinational sector.”