Task force needed on property issue

The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has published its new residential property price index, which is a study covering house and apartment prices from 2005 to 2011. It shows that prices have fallen almost 40% lower than they were at the height of the property bubble in 2007.

The index grew by about 1% in every month from June 2005 until March 2007. There was little movement in the index during the next eight months, but since December 2007 the index has been in persistent decline. There was an accelerated rate of decline during 2009, peaking in July of that year. At 1.7%, the figure for the monthly decline in February of this year was the highest since July 2009.

House prices in Dublin are down by about 45%, while apartment prices are down by 52%. Prices fell by 1.8% in Dublin during March, which was 13% down on the same month last year. Apartment prices in the capital were down by 2.8% during March of this year, which amounted to a 13.3% drop since March of 2010.