Call for policy 'shake-up' as house prices soar by €100,000 in five years

The median price for a property across the country remains unchanged as of the end of February at €360,000. File picture

House prices continued to charge upwards in February with the cost of housing jumping by 8% over the previous 12 months, according to the CSO. It means that the median price for a home in Ireland has rocketed upwards by €100,000 since 2020.

However, the number of properties bought in the second month of 2025 fell significantly from January — with just 3,245 dwelling purchases notified to the Revenue Commissioners versus 3,801 four weeks previously.

The reduced figure is even starker for first-time buyers, suggesting that spiralling prices may have forced aspiring buyers out of the market.

The CSO's latest residential property price index shows that the rate at which prices are increasing slowed slightly in the second month of the year, down from the 8.2% noted in January.

Echoing recent trends, the rate of increase in Dublin was lower than that seen in the rest of the country – 7.1% versus 8.7% – a product of the fact that prices in Dublin, which are the highest in Ireland, have plateaued over the past 18 months.

The median price for a property across the country remains unchanged as of the end of February, at €360,000, meanwhile.

Social Democrats housing spokesperson, Rory Hearne, said: “When the previous government took office in June 2020, the median price for a home in Ireland was €260,000. Since then, the cost of a home has increased by a staggering €100,000”

He said that the new CSO figures show that “a generation continues to be locked out of homeownership”. “It is unbelievable that the government insists they have the housing crisis under control when they clearly do not.”

The highest and lowest prices for property remain in Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown and Leitrim respectively, standing at €670,000 and €185,000.

The total expenditure on property purchases in February across the country was €1.4bn, a 13% decrease on January, while first-time buyer purchases were down even more markedly, dropping 21% to 1,195 from the 1,504 noted previously.

Brokers Ireland, which represents mortgage brokers nationwide, said that the new figures show that a “fundamental shake-up" is required in housing policy in Ireland. “We’re talking about ongoing growth in house prices which are already high,” the body’s deputy CEO Rachel McGovern said.

“Housing policy must break with the disturbing acceptance there has been of the low level of housing delivery,” she said, adding that a reliance on a potential recession to ease house price growth represents “an appalling situation”.

Ms McGovern said that the Government’s new housing plan, which is set to involve the appointment of a so-called independent ‘housing czar’ and the creation of a strategic housing delivery office, “must involve a fundamental shake-up in the State’s response to housing”.