House prices continue to grow

House prices had the strongest start to any year since 2000 as they continued growing in February.

According to the Permanent TSB/ESRI house price index, house prices rose by 1% overall last month, down slightly from 1.2% in January.

Since July, house price growth has been around 1% a month since last July.

The annual rate of growth in February picked up to 11.1% from 10.2% in January.

Prices are up 2.2% in the first two months of 2006, compared with a rise of just 0.6% in the same period last year.