Housing market becoming ‘harder to access’

More people face being shut out of the housing market in the face of rapidly rising property prices, amid warnings that its ‘help to buy’ budget scheme will only boost prices further.

Figures published by the CSO show property prices are continuing to rise and at an escalating rate. In the year to the end of September, residential property prices nationally rose 7.3% — a faster growth rate than the 4.2% in the 12-month period to September 2015.

While Dublin residential property prices rose 5.4% in the year to September, in the rest of the country in the same period they rose 11%. The figures come a week ahead of the Central Bank publishing a first review of the mortgage lending rules it imposed in February last year, and after the October Budget announcement of a new ‘help to buy’ scheme aimed at first-time buyers.