Typical price of a home has climbed by €200,000 in the past 10 years – CSO

The housing crisis has been brought into sharp focus by new figures showing a surge in the price of a typical home, rising by almost €30,000 in the last year alone.

The cost of buying a home has shot up by €200,000 over the past decade, data from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) shows.

The median, or typical, price of a home in the State in March was €362,500. This is up from €164,000 in March 2015. In percentage terms, this is an increase of 122pc.

It means that property values have more than doubled in the last decade. In the past five years the median price of a home is up €100,000, according to the figures extracted from the CSO property price index by the Irish Independent.

Statisticians in the CSO prefer to use median prices rather than averages. Median prices denote a value lying at the midpoint of quantities. Averages can be distorted by a small number of high-value properties.

The latest house price values come in the same week that a report by the property website Daft found that the average asking prices for rents nationally topped €2,000 for the first time ever.

Property prices continue to rise, although there has been a slight slowdown in the rate of housing inflation. But despite this, prices are still up for the 19th month in a row, according to the CSO.

Across the State, house prices were up by 7.5pc in the year to March 2025. This is down from 8pc in the year to February.

Property prices in Dublin rose by 6pc and prices outside Dublin were up by 8.7pc compared with March last year.

Independent economist Austin Hughes said the surge in the cost of buying a typical home showed that affordability was being stretched.

Mr Hughes said there may be more people working in Ireland and earning more than a decade ago, but strains on affordability were making ownership far less attainable.

“Affordability strains take time to bite, but the €100,000 increase in house prices over the past five years is about 10 times the increase in average earnings,” he said.

“Over the past 10 years, a near €200,000 increase in house prices is almost 14 times the increase in average earnings over the same period,” he added.

CSO statistics show that the median price of a dwelling – bought in the year to March at €362,500 – is up almost €30,000 in the past year alone. The highest median price for a home in March this year was €665,000 in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown while the lowest median price was €180,000 in Leitrim.

Outside Dublin, the most expensive region over the last year was Wicklow, with a median price of €454,000. The second most expensive region was Kildare, which had a median price of €410,000.

In March, 3,617 dwelling purchases by households were filed with the Revenue Commissioners at a total value of €1.5bn. These purchases were made up of 2,866 existing dwellings and 751 new dwellings.

Revenue data, quoted by the CSO, shows there were 1,336 first-time buyer purchases in the month. Prices for new homes were up 4.1pc in the first three months of this year.

CSO statisticians said this was higher than the increase in the same three-month period in 2024. An acute shortage of second-hand homes drove prices up by 9.1pc in the first three months of this year.

Source: Charlie Weston, Irish Independent, 22nd May 2025