The Residential Property Price Index (RPPI) increased by 8.6% nationally in the year to July.

Prices in Dublin rose by 8.1% and prices outside Dublin rose by 9.1%.

In July 2021, a total of 3,822 dwelling purchases, by households at market prices, were filed with Revenue – an increase of 49.2% compared to July 2020, CSO data shows.

The median price of a dwelling purchased in the 12 months to July 2021 was €267,000.

In the 12 months to July 2021, the lowest median price for a house was €120,000 in Longford, while the highest median price was €560,00 in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown.

Statistician Viacheslav Voronovich said: “In the period before COVID-19, the annual growth in residential property prices fell gradually, from 13.4% in April 2018 to 0.9% in March 2020.

“While price growth remained subdued throughout most of 2020, a trend of accelerating growth emerged in the latter part of the year, and into 2021.

Residential property prices increased by 2.2% annually in December 2020, before price growth rose to 8.6% in July 2021.”

COVID-19 restrictions impacted on the ability to buy. Households purchased 2,351 dwellings in April 2020, a reduction of 28.9% compared with the same month in 2019.

In May 2020, households purchased 1,937 dwellings, a fall of 46.2% – and the lowest monthly number of purchases since February 2014. 

Since the latter part of 2020, purchases by households have returned to pre-COVID-19 levels.

Pre-COVID levels

In the first seven months of 2021, there were 24,280 dwellings purchased by households at market prices. This compares with 24,416 for the first seven months of pre-pandemic 2019.

Existing dwellings accounted for 3,221 (84.3%) of the purchases filed with the Revenue Commissioners in July 2021 – the balance of 601 (15.7%) were new properties.

The highest median prices outside of Dublin were in Wicklow (€370,000) and Kildare (€330,000).