Property prices in Westmeath rose by €27,700 in the last year, according to the latest MyHome.ie Property Report in association with Davy.
The report for Q3 2019 shows that the median asking price for a property in the county now stands at €199,950. While this was unchanged from the previous quarter, prices are now up 16.1 percent on this time last year when they stood at €172,250.
This was the largest annual increase recorded in any county in Ireland and has left asking prices at their highest level since they stood at €210,000 in Q4 2010.
The overall trend in prices was reflected in the asking price for a three bed semi-detached house in the county, which despite a 4.8 percent fall in the last quarter from €189,000 to €180,000, remained 5.9 percent ahead of this time last year when they stood at €170,000.
Meanwhile, the asking price for a four bed semi-detached house in Westmeath grew 2.3 percent in the quarter from €215,000 to €220,000. This contributed to an annual increase of 10 percent with prices now up €20,050 from €199,950 this time last year.
The number of properties for sale in Westmeath on MyHome.ie jumped by 15.9 percent in the last quarter but was down 1.9 percent on this time last year.
The average time for a property to go sale agreed in the county after being placed up for sale now stands at just over three-and-a-half months.
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Author of the report, Conall MacCoille, Chief Economist at Davy, said that while Q3 (which covers the traditionally quieter summer months ) often shows a softening in prices, the decline of 2.8 percent in the national figure in this report is higher than usual.?
MacCoille said the slowdown is linked to the CBI macro prudential guidelines on mortgage lending and Brexit.?
“We believe it primarily reflects constraints on home buyers leverage from the Central Bank of Ireland’s mortgage lending rules, now accompanied by the uncertainty of Brexit,” Conall MacCoille, Chief Economist at Davy, remarked.
MacCoille said that the slowdown does not imply that housing supply has caught up with demand.
“There were 19,300 housing completions in the year to June 2019 but we believe natural household formation is at least 30,000 per annum if not higher, well in excess of current homebuilding levels,” the Chief Economist, continued.
Angela Keegan, Managing Director of MyHome.ie, noted that while asking price growth is softening, other key indicators are increasing
“The volume of recorded house price sales continues to grow, rents continue to rise, mortgage lending is up and there was an increase of some six percent in the number of new properties on the market (via MyHome.ie ) at 10,846.? In total there were some 23,700 properties listed on the site in September which is 4.7 percent up on the year and is the higher number of properties listed since mid-2015,” Angela emphasised.
