House prices across Galway are set to soar by eight per cent in 2021 - the highest increase in the State, and almost twice the national average of 4.4 per cent.
The figures come from the survey, Predict Growth in 2021, carried out by Real Estate Alliance, which found that the price of the average three-bed semi in Galway city is expected to rise by eight per cent in the next 12 months, while house prices in the county set to rise by four per cent. This is as a result of prices increasing by €5,000 between September and December.
A three-bed semi-detached home in the city now costs an average of €290,000 - up nearly three per cent on the December 2019 average of €282,500. A similar house in the county now costs an average of €170,000, also up three per cent on the December 2019 average of €165,000.
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The figures have been described as “extremely alarming” by Sinn Féin Galway West TD Mairéad Farrell, who alleged that Government policies, such as the Help to Buy scheme, are “directly inflating” house prices.
“We have a generation whose lives have been defined by the housing crisis,” she said. “There is an absolute lack of ambition from this government towards solving the housing crisis. It would be much better if this money was invested in local authorities to deliver genuinely affordable homes rather than make private sector homes more expensive for struggling first-time buyers.”
Demand for rural homes
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A consequence of Covid-19 and people working from home is a rise in demand for property in rural areas with home office potential, according to Kevin Burke of REA McGreal Burke in Galway city and Loughrea.
“We are seeing a marked rise in purchasers returning home,” he said. “These ‘boomerang buyers’ are upwardly mobile young people working in cities who return to their rural home every weekend. Now that they can work from home, they are buying in these provincial and rural areas.”
