Official figures show that growth in residential property prices continued to slow in December last year, with the annual increase falling to 7.8%.

This compared with 8.5% in November, and was the smallest annual rise since June 2021. Rates of increase had topped 15% in the early part of 2022.

The Central Statistics Office (CSO) said that prices of homes increased by 0.3% during December alone, compared with a 0.9% monthly jump in the same month in 2021.

West sees biggest increase

Prices in Dublin rose at an annual rate of 6% in December, while prices outside Dublin were up by 9.3% over the 12 months.

In Dublin, house prices increased by 6.1%, and apartment prices were up by 5.4%. Outside Dublin, house prices were up by 9.6%, and apartment prices rose by 5.3%.

The region outside of Dublin that saw the largest rise in house prices was the West (Galway, Mayo, Roscommon) at 14.9%.

Price of new homes up 10%

The CSO figures show that prices of new dwellings in the fourth quarter of 2022 were 10% higher than in the same quarter of 2021. This compares with an increase of 9.1% in the year to the third quarter.

Prices of existing homes in the final quarter of 2022 were 8.3% higher than a year earlier – a slowdown compared with the 12.6% annual increase in the third quarter.

The CSO said that 5,213 home purchases by households were filed with Revenue in December – an increase of 0.8% compared with December 2021.

Around 78% of these were linked to existing homes, while 22% were purchases of new homes.

The median price of a dwelling purchased in the 12 months to December 2022 was €305,000.