Past housing mistakes must not be repeated

This week saw the release of the latest figures on residential house prices from the Central Statistics Office.

This has become one of the most eagerly awaited pieces of official data for many people given how preoccupied we still are in this country with bricks and mortar.

The CSO figures are based on returns from eight mortgage lenders and are based on sales for which a mortgage has been granted and records the price when the transaction is completed. As such the index fails to measure house sales that are not based on a mortgage transaction and we know that over the past couple of years over half of housing transactions have been cash based.