Prices of homes in Cork city and county dip in final quarter of 2023

The average price of a home in Cork city and county fell slightly in the final quarter of 2023, but prices were up approximately 4% and 6%, respectively, when compared to a year prior.

In Cork city, the average price of a home is now €337,500, down 1.1% on quarter three but up 3.7% on 2022.

Meanwhile in the county, the average price of a home is €286,869 – a drop of 1.9% on quarter three but an annual increase of 6.4%.

The findings were contained in the latest Daft.ie House Price Report.

According to the property website, the typical listed price nationwide in the final three months of the year was €320,046.

This, Daft said, was 3.4% higher than a year previously, “the smallest annual increase since 2019”.

Prices rose in the second and third quarters of 2023 but fell, by an average of 1.5%, in the final quarter of the year.

Supply continued to remain at low levels in Q4, with the number of homes available to buy nationwide on December 1 standing at just over 11,100.

In Munster on that date, there were just over 3,100 homes on the market, down 23% year-on-year and the lowest total since early 2022.

The number of transactions in Munster in the first nine months of 2023 was largely unchanged compared to the same period in 2022.

“Lack of price growth because there is sufficient supply to meet demand is, by anyone’s measure, a good thing.

“But lack of price growth when there is scarce supply – simply because it is sufficient to meet weak demand – is less welcome.

“That seems to be the picture facing the second-hand market in particular at the moment,” economist at Trinity College Dublin and author of the Daft report, Ronan Lyons, commented.

“Supply of newly built homes for purchase has certainly increased but the second-hand market, which is the larger share of the market, has been working in the other direction – buffeted by changed economic conditions,” he continued.

Speaking in the wake of the publication of the report, Labour Party candidate in the city’s South East ward, Peter Horgan, said more vacant properties must be brought back into use to boost the housing stock.

“The fact that house prices are rising nearly 4% while we still have the scourge of vacancy and dereliction across Cork city tells its own story.

“To have one vacant home in the middle of a housing crisis is outrageous.

“If we brought these homes back into use that would cool the house price market at the same time,” he said.

Mr Horgan called for more funding to be given to local authorities to tackle vacancy and dereliction and said local authorities should then have “targets on returning vacant and derelict properties into use”.

“That would truly bring about change for those on the hard end of the housing crisis in Cork,” he said.