Downward spiral to continue with house prices set to drop further 15%

House prices are expected to fall by a further 15% this year, following on from last year’s near 13% drop.

New monthly figures from the CSO show that residential property prices fell by 16.4% — on a year-on-year basis — in April. This was largely unchanged on the 16.3% year-on-year fall measured in March; but was significantly ahead of the 12.2% annualised price fall evident in April of last year. On a rolling monthly basis, April saw a 1.1% fall compared with March.

Closer scrutiny of the latest CSO data shows that house prices in the Dublin area actually rose by 0.5% in the month; but were down by over 17% on a year-on-year basis. In the rest of the country, as a whole, the average house price fell by 2% on a monthly basis and just 1.3% year-on-year.