House price register got over 41,000 visits in 11 hours

This property thing could catch on. Figures show in the 11 hours from when the Residential Property Price Register went live it received 41,851 visits.

In total there were 444,044 page views of the site between 1pm and midnight on Sunday, and the average length of the visit clocked in at 11 minutes.

With almost 53,000 properties featured on the site, dating from the start of 2010, there is certainly enough material.

The website includes information as declared to the Revenue Commissioners for stamp duty purposes by those buying the property, including date of sale, price, and address of the property.

It does not include details such as size of the house or the number of bedrooms, but given the number of clicks it has received it is fair to say there has been a little less curtain-twitching and a little more online research since it went live on Sunday.

It has thrown up some surprises, such as houses in Roscommon selling for as little as €8,000 and in Co Roscommon for a little over €11,000.

Compiled by the Property Service Regulatory Authority, it is hoped that new additions will be added quickly after any sale, although the Government has stressed that the database is not to be viewed as a property price index.

Estate agents DNG were among those who welcomed the introduction of the site yesterday, with its managing director, Keith Lowe, claiming: “Whilst the register will provide transparency in terms of actual sale prices of properties it will be particularly helpful in providing data on the number of transactions happening at any given time and by locality which will be an indication of the state and health of the property market.”

Initial analysis of the data shows an increase in property sales in Dublin and to a lesser extent in Cork and Galway, although separate studies have shown that prices are still falling in most parts of the country.

* propertypriceregister.ie