Home prices ‘10% below Celtic Tiger peaks’
A report from property website Daft.ie shows that home-price inflation slowed slightly last year as supply constraints continued to affect the market.
Daft.ie’s review of 2025 finds that list prices rose by 5.5% last year, compared with 6.8% in 2024.
The report says that list prices are now 10% below Celtic Tiger peaks.
Report author Ronan Lyons (associate professor in economics, TCD) said that the early indications were that transaction prices rose by 7.4%, compared with 8.7% in 2024.
The economist said that, despite the modest decline in the speed of increases, the market remained “very tight”.
Daft.ie’s ‘market-heat’ measure shows that the gap between the initial list price and the ultimate transaction price, at over 6%, was close to a record high.
Second-hand supply
The volume of second-hand homes put up for sale over the course of the year was just over 53,000 – down from a peak of 63,000 in early 2023 and around 10% lower than the pre-COVID level.
Lyons pointed out, however, that there were only 11,500 second-hand homes available to buy on December 1.
“While that's up 7% year-on-year, it is less than half the pre-COVID average of over 26,000; and Dublin partially offsets this, as its supply picture is rosier than elsewhere,” he stated.
The economist said that regional differences in the rate of price increases reflected the supply picture, with Dublin recording a smaller percentage increase in prices in 2025 than other regions.
Recovery varies
Lyons pointed out that, while much commentary focused on the supply of newly built homes, the second-hand market was still the dominant source of supply for homes to buy.
He said that, during 2023, an interest-rate shock kicked in, drying up supply in the second-hand market.
“Since 2024, that has started to unwind – but, again, the size of the shock and the recovery during 2025 is very different.
“While in Dublin, second-hand supply is almost back to 2019 levels, in Munster, it is still one-third below. Without supply, healthier conditions – more stable prices – will still be out of reach,” he concluded.