Too early to give property market the all-clear

The monthly house price index released by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) has established itself as the most trustworthy and reliable source of price data on the Irish residential property market, despite its imperfections.

The index is based on data from eight of the main mortgage lending institutions.

The prices are recorded only when the sale actually occurs. It seeks to capture the price at which housing transactions actually take place and where the transaction is funded by a mortgage. This means that it does not record transactions based on cash only. It is estimated by estate agents that in 2012 roughly 40% of houses sold were purely cash based and hence would not be captured by the CSO. Despite this the CSO index does provide a pretty decent snapshot of the market and a decent snapshot of what is happening in the market.