Special property report: Cork's soaring house prices edge close to boom levels

After a decade or more of a housing crisis, prices only look to be going one way

The Central Statistics Office this week said property price inflation had reached double-digits again for the first time in two years.

The Central Statistics Office this week said property price inflation had reached double-digits again for the first time in two years.

It is a sad reality that the public is no longer surprised by such inflation. For so many years now, Ireland has had a housing crisis due to a lack of properties to meet demand which has kept driving prices up to levels now that are on a par with the Celtic Tiger era.

Take Douglas on the southside of Cork city. Asking prices for homes reached a dizzying €407,396 at the height of the boom in 2006.

But such was the collapse in house prices, that they fell beneath €200,000 on average in 2013. After rising steadily in subsequent years, prices in Douglas leaped upwards during Covid-19.

From an average of €309,505 in 2020, this year the price of purchasing a home stands at an average of €378,722.

Since the last general election in 2020, the term “housing crisis” returns a staggering 2,291 results when searched for on the Oireachtas website to see how many times it has been uttered on the Dáil record.

Take these quotes from one debate on the topic.

“This crisis is dire and is getting worse,” said Richard Boyd Barrett.

“The housing situation in this country is in crisis,” said Peader Tóibín. “The size of the crisis is breathtaking.” “The crisis in housing, like the crisis in homelessness, is not new,” said Mary Lou McDonald.

The notable thing about this Dáil debate is that it came fully 10 years ago, during a motion seeking to acknowledge there was a severe housing crisis in this country. The government of the day voted down the motion, with its counter motion not mentioning the word ‘crisis’.

It nevertheless became common parlance as both governments and opposition TDs vowed to solve it. A decade later, they are still making the same promises.

A clear way to illustrate just how squeezed buyers are and have become is to dig into the numbers. 

Just this week, the CSO said that property price inflation had reached double-digits again for the first time in two years as house prices rise.

Analysis supplied by Trinity College Dublin associate professor of economics, Ronan Lyons, and Daft.ie on the situation on a town-by-town level in Cork shows just how much prices crashed from their Celtic Tiger peak before surging again, and surging significantly.

House prices

Cork City Areas

Cork County Areas

Douglas is by no means the most expensive place to buy in the city areas at present. Blackrock, in the south-west of the city, Rochestown, Ovens, and other commuter towns all have larger average asking prices than €380,000.

Even the relatively cheaper areas like Blackpool have seen a significant surge. Just 10 years ago, the average price was just €91,399 in this area, according to the data supplied by Dr Lyons and Daft.ie. Now, that figure is €229,132.

While the national average asking price is €334,944, most areas of Cork City have house prices in excess of that.

This includes Bishopstown and Wilton (€377,464), Montenotte and Tivoli (€350,448), Ballincollig (€367,877), Carrigaline (€361,718) and Glanmire, and the north-east of the city (€358,761).

It all means that for a single person earning the average wage, a house is most likely out of reach in Cork City. And, for the more expensive areas, a first-time buyer couple would need to be earning in excess of at least €80,000 a year to buy a home.

What the figures tell us is that asking prices in Cork City, while generally not at the same heights that they reached in the latter Celtic Tiger years, they are nearing that mark again having risen significantly since reaching their trough during the recession.

It’s a similar story when you look at the rest of the county.

The outlier is Kinsale, with prices now approaching their Celtic Tiger peak of €510,000. The average asking price so far this year is €484,191.

As a general, however rule, the average asking price in Co Cork is lower than the city, at €303,704 compared to €348,944.

Many areas, such as Mallow, Mitchelstown, Fermoy, Youghal, and Macroom, have asking prices below €300,000.

However, more expensive places to buy in Cork with asking prices well in excess of €300,000 include Bantry, Skibbereen, Clonakilty, and Rosscarbery/Baltimore.

In Crosshaven, average prices this year have reached €390,103. This is from a low of €181,149 in 2013.

Meanwhile, house prices in Durrus and Mizen have reached €420,331 on average. This is from a low of €220,686 in 2014.

Availability of homes

Another key driver of this is the availability of homes. Recent analysis has suggested the Government’s targets are inadequate at meeting a basic level of housing demand in Ireland.

Furthermore, a recent study from the ESRI found that Ireland will need up to 53,000 new homes a year to keep up with population growth, even without factoring in all the “pent-up demand” from years of undersupply. Last year, just under 32,700 homes were built.

And the stock of second-hand homes for sale in Cork paints its own picture on how these constraints are also contributing to the surge in house prices seen in recent years.

In September 2019, there were 850 second-hand homes for sale in Cork city. In September 2024, this figure was just 524. This was from a low of 458 homes for sale in the city in January.

Going back even further, it was common to see over 1,000 second-hand homes for sale each month in Cork city throughout 2013 for example.

House Prices per region 

from 2006-2024

Choose your area to see the prices

Cork City Areas

Ballincollig

Ballyvolane / Mayfield

Bishopstown / Wilton

Blackpool

Blackrock

Carrigaline

Cobh

Commuter Towns

Douglas

Glanmire / NE City

Montenotte / Tivoli

North West City

Ovens

Passage West

Rochestown

South East City

South West City

Cork County Areas

Bandon Town

Near Bandon

Bantry

Blarney / Tower

CarrighTwohill

Charleville

Clonakilty

Crosshaven

Dunmanway

Durrus / Mizen

Fermoy

Glengariff / Beara

Kinsale

Macroom

Mallow

Midleton

MidWest County

Millstreet

Mitchelstown

North Central

North East

North West

Rosscarbery / Baltimore

Skibbereen

South East

Watergrasshill

Youghal

Other

The situation appears even more severe in Cork county. From 2015 to 2019, there were at least 2,000 homes listed for sale each month across the county area.

This fell to below 2,000 in the first month of 2020 and has kept falling, with higher interest rates also impacting on the market.

It is now the case that less than half of that Cork County are available now, with just 1,074 second-hand homes for sale in September, with the chance for remote working in more rural areas potentially heightening demand.

Dr Lyons said the second-hand market in Cork is not as bad in terms of supply when compared to Limerick and Galway, but the number of homes available for sale in recent years has fallen significantly.

“Cork has been sort of relatively steady, but still, what we need from a healthy housing market point of view is actually significantly more homes on the market at any particular point in time,” he said.

“The reason that's happening in the second-hand segment is because interest rates went up. Everyone fixed their interest rates before they went up and fixed for three or five or seven years. And are very unlikely to be moving until those three, five or seven years are up now.

“So, it'll be a gradual five-year process between 2024 and 2029 of people rolling off these fixed interest rates, and the second-hand market kind of coming back to normal.” Alongside this, figures for last year show that just over 1,000 homes were built in Cork city. But, as housing experts have repeatedly pointed out, this does not necessarily translate into all these new homes coming on the market for buyers.

These will be a mix of build-to-rent, social housing and housing for sale generally. And, given how the likes of the ESRI have estimated tens of thousands more homes are needed each year, the delivery to date may only be scratching the surface of what’s needed.

Heading into the next election, the Government’s narrative certainly isn’t one of having solved this crisis, but merely “gaining momentum” in tackling the issue. Its revised housing targets which are due to be published soon are set to be closely scrutinised as well as being seen as a kind of election pledge for what it says it’ll deliver if returned to office.

But what this snapshot of how things have developed over recent years in Cork tells us clearly is how big that mountain still is to climb.

Dr Lyons said Cork likely needs to double its stock of homes in the next 20-30 years which he acknowledged is a “huge ask”.

“It might be the case that prices level off,” he said. “It might be the case that there's further upward pressure, but it's hard to see at the moment, with the current level of activity in the in the region, how we're going to see better affordability.”