Increased demand for starter semi-detached houses, strong sales of southside properties and solid performance of houses in the €250,000 to €350,000 price range all helped to increase second hand house prices in Dublin by 3.3% since the beginning of the year, according to the latest DNG Property Price Gauge.

According to the nationwide estate agent the average price of a second hand house in Dublin now stands at €262,000, up 9.5% since this time last year, reflecting the third quarter of price increases.

Price increases were not evenly reported in the report with properties in the €250,000 to €350,000 band recording the highest increase of 5.1% since January or an annual increase of 12.7%, mainly due to the increased demand for semi-detached houses. Meanwhile houses in the sub €250,000 category recorded the lowest quarterly increase of 2.8% reflecting the higher concentration of apartments or less favourly located homes.

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Further discrepancy in the housing market is also evident in the strong performance of Southside homes, which despite experiencing the worst of the property price drops from peak to trough, showed an increase of 4.2% in Q1 and 11.2% since this time last year. Northside homes increased by 3.3% (8.6% annually) while houses in the Westside of the city increased by 3.2% (6.0% annually).

Commenting Keith Lowe, CEO, DNG said "These price increases should be put in context of 6 years of price declines up to the middle of last year. House price increases are also not consistently spread throughout the market, reflecting demand preferences but it is encouraging to see three straight quarters of house price increases. Properties are still down almost 63% on the peak they achieved in Q3 2006. There also appears to be signs of a two tier market emerging in terms of price recovery with the capital and some other high population urban areas such as Galway, Cork and Sligo outperforming the rest of the country. Dublin, naturally due to its high population, infrastructure and employment is likely to continue to outperform the rest of Ireland in terms of house price recovery."

(CD)