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HOUSE BUYERS ARE now “stretched to the largest extent in over a decade”, with the average house purchase now almost eight times the average wage, according to the latest property price report from MyHome.ie.
The report, published this morning, found that the average household residential purchase in the third quarter of 2022 was €370,000, a 7.7 multiple of the average wage of €48,000.
This is the highest house price-to-income multiple since 2009, when prices of 8.1 times were reached.
However, the report states that this remains “well below Celtic Tiger era peaks”, and is now close to the UK multiple, where house prices are falling due to a surge in mortgage rates above 6%.
The report found that the annual inflation of prices slowed to 6% in the fourth quarter, while quarterly asking price inflation dropped by 0.4% nationally.
The median asking price for a home in the fourth quarter was €330,000, a reduction of 0.4% compared to the third quarter of 2022, but a 6% increase compared to the same period a year ago.
In Dublin, the median asking price was €436,000 in the fourth quarter, which is a fall of 0.8% compared to the third quarter. It is a 3.6% increase compared to Q4 2021 however.
While asking price inflation has dropped, just 3% of homes listed for sale in the fourth quarter saw asking price reductions, which demonstrates a resilience in the market.
Report author Conall MacCoille, the chief economist at Davy, said it appeared that the market had held up better than anecdotal evidence had suggested in 2022.
“The number of vendors cutting their asking prices is still at low levels. Also, transactions in Q4 were still being settled above asking prices, indicative of a tight market,” MacCoille said.
“There are 15,000 properties listed for sale on MyHome.ie, an improvement from the beginning of 2022 but below pre-pandemic levels exceeding 20,000. The average time to sale agreed in Q4 was just 2.7 months, still close to historic lows.
“We expect transactions will exceed €21 billion in 2022, up 7.5% in volume terms on 2021.”
According to the report, the average mortgage approval in October was €280,600, up 4.3% on the year, with approvals continuing to exceed drawdowns, pointing to “excess demand in the housing market”.
MacCoille said that even if mortgage interest rates rise to 4%, debt service ratios are unlikely to become stretched and there will be only a limited headwind to house prices.
However, he noted that already stretched valuations in Ireland could be exacerbated by the Central Bank’s decision to ease mortgage lending rules to four times’ income. He said this gave an upside risk to the 4% house price inflation prediction for next year.
According to the report, in Q3 2022 there were 7,544 house completions, with 27,800 homes being built in the last 12 months.
MyHome.ie says it expects the final number of houses completed in 2022 to reach 28,400. However, it predicts the number of new builds will fall to 27,000 in 2023.
“We expect a slowdown in completions because of recent signs that build cost inflation, combined with higher funding costs, may weigh on activity,” the report states.
It says there were just 1,841 houses commenced in October, the lowest figure since December 2021, bringing the running 12-month total down to 26,608.
It also says that just 2,347 apartment units were granted in Q3 2022, down 67% on the year. In contrast, planning permissions for 4,396 housing units were granted.
In a statement, Sinn Féin housing spokesperson Eoin Ó Broin TD said the report “makes for depressing reading” and that the Government’s failed housing policy is “driving house price inflation”.
“Minister Darragh O’Brien will not have met any of his affordable housing targets in 2023 and the targets were too low in the first place,” Ó Broin said.
“In many cases what is being delivered is far from affordable. Meanwhile his controversial policies such as the Shared Equity Loan scheme are contributing to house price rises.”
The Dublin Mid-West TD said the Government needs to “urgently” revise their affordable housing plans and provide local authorities and approved housing bodies with “increased capital and more ambitious targets”.
“They must also strip away the red tape that is slowing down the delivery of much needed affordable homes,” he added.
“Short of this, the Government’s housing crisis will continue to get worse in 2023.”
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Average wage of 48K, and herein lies the out of touchness. I’m sure the retail, hospitality and most of the manufacturing sectors would love to be on this average
@Andrew Giles: Would love a factcheck on this to see what percentage of people in Ireland are actually on the average wage
@Shaun Gallagher: I’m in a highly skilled sector and paid well below this figure.
@Rafa Condron: strange if something is highly skilled it normally means a high wage due to it being hard to obtain the skills. It could be a highly skilled job that not many want I guess.
@Craic_a_tower: like playing Mario Kart for a living?
@Andrew Giles: If Bernard Arnault walked into a room with five other people, they’d all be $32,000,000,000 richer on average.
The median wage in Ireland is €38,000, meaning that half of Irish people earn less than this. 25% earn less than €21,700.
http://www.salaryexplorer.com/salary-survey.php?loc=104&loctype=1
@Séamus MacIonnrachtaigh: so my original comment about out of touchness is correct in other words.
@Andrew Giles: Before tax too
@Craic_a_tower: Highly skilled and educated – working in an industry with no barriers to entry, which lowers the sector’s wages due to the over-saturation of underskilled people taking jobs for lower wages. Also see regularly job advertisements for internships to large multinational companies, looking for someone to basically run their whole department, as an intern, the job actually specified it’s an internship but you must be fully qualified and be an expert in the industry – for no money. It’s soul destroying.
@Rafa Condron: highly skilled and educated in a field that has no barrier to entry suggests that neither are required. If people can do it it for less pay while in your opinion they are unskilled suggests also that it is not a high skilled job. You could have been a brilliant web designer but the field moved on so it requires a lot less skill. Could have been the best draughtsman in the world but CAD eliminated the skill required. I am have skills that are difficult to obtain along with experience where not a lot of people have that so get paid more than average while there is a shortage. That is how wages work. Worked for a long time in statistics and employee pay is tied to skills, training and difficulty replacing a person. If unskilled people can be paid to do your job salary is low
@Andrew Giles: The “Median” wage for workers in Ireland in 2020 was €40,500.
Impossible for most to get a mortgage, small landlords are leaving the sector and the REITS/CUCKOOS are hoovering them up to rent at extortionate prices.
How did this ever happen?
@Frank Cauldhame: my guess, pure greed and a move to privatisation
@Frank Cauldhame: I am on 42k/annum and guess what? I’ve got a mortgage last year and bought a house. It’s not impossible as long as you bring some flexibility into the deal. If you are looking for a posh house in Dublin, of course there is no way. But if you are able to move into the countryside, you’ll get acceptable houses for less than 150k. That was the limit I’ve set for myself and honestly, some properties around that price are a shame. But still there are properties around that are affordable, even with an average wage.
Not going to end well
@Shane Hickey: will this bubble burst? Has all the signs of the last celtic tiger.
It’ll be like USA here soon with everyone having no choice but to pay high rent. I feel sorry for young people starting off :(
@Anna Carr: I don’t mean to sound rude, but newsflash for you Anna: that’s what we’ve all been having to do for years now already – pay extortionate USA-style rents.
@Anna Carr: will you and your peers continue to vote for fine gael and fianna fail?? Feeling sorry is useless
@Gert McNulty: will you and your peers continue to believe SF ‘one for everyone in the audience’ spiel.
@Bri Lyons: The grim reality is FF FG and SF or some combination of same are inevitable. We are out of luck whatever the outcome. How any government can sit back and look at their country and see so many people struggling with health, rent, heating, childcare, and on and on, and feel like they are doing a good job is beyond baffling
40 years old. Originally from Dublin. Earnt below this average wage my whole life and managed to buy 2 houses an hour from Dublin. Now renting 1 and living in other. Some can do same, some can’t, some choose not to.
@Cullen Cullen:
Fair dues to you. Buying a first house has always historically being tough for the vast majority of people (normally couples). Very few can buy ‘where’ they grew up, you have to cut your cloth. In todays ‘single/individual’ world it is obviously going to be tougher for someone to buy their own place.
@zephyrum: I’m single. If I had kids I’d say I’d have not been able to have done it though the hypothetical Mrs would have been working so … maybe we could have.
@Cullen Cullen: when did you buy these 2 properties? Myself and my husband struggled to find anything under €320k in Rush, Lusk, Donabate or Swords in 2022.
@Cullen Cullen: Fair play man, I honestly admire your initiative. Would I be right in assuming you bought your first property in the Celtic Tiger era of 100% mortgages since you say you’ve earned below the average wage your whole life?
This would mean you were in your early 20’s and to be fair, most people at that age aren’t focused on buying property and settling down. Their focus is on other adventures in life, which isn’t wrong, and shouldn’t mean that they should be penalised by locking them out of the chance of home ownership in their 30s. So I think it’s wrong of you to say some choose not to buy property.
If you had waited until your 30s to buy your first property, you would’ve been refused a mortgage based on your salary unless you had an incredibly large deposit saved up
@Jen Mc: 2017 and 2021. I bought outside Dublin. Half the price.
@Cullen Cullen: which would be impossible to achieve if you were renting… especially Dublin rents.
But honestly man, fair play to you for you initiative in early adulthood. It was very wise of you and it’s clearly worked out well and is paying dividends for you.
Just please remember that we don’t all follow the same path in life, which doesn’t make it wrong and certainly doesn’t warrant penalisation as a consequence.
@Martin O’Callaghan: I worked through my 20s. Bought the houses in my late 30s. I missed the celtic tiger.
@Martin O’Callaghan: I was renting up till last year in South Dublin (where i grew up and cant affird to buy) so, it is possible.
I rented the 1st house I bought (2017) the week I got it. I’ve never slept in it. Its rent covers the mortgage and some.
Only started to live in my 2nd house last year.
Some can do same, some can’t, some choose not to.
I feel you’re penalising yourself with your limiting beliefs though.
@Cullen Cullen: wow! I really do take my hat off to you man, fair play. Honestly.
But the point still remains that most people can’t do this because we pursued other adventures in life in our 20s, and by our 30s the rents have become so extortionate that we’re unable to save the sizeable deposit required to get the mortgage.
So I disagree with your point that some choose not to. I would say that most people are actually locked out due to the financial terror being rained down upon us from successive Irish governments over the past 20 years, as a consequence of economic policies pursued, that has had a crippling effect.
I also wouldn’t say that’s a limiting belief, it’s (unfortunately) the reality of life for most millennials and younger.
@Martin O’Callaghan: I will agree with you the day a millennial knocks and my door and offers to cut my grass to earn a few bob on the side
@Cullen Cullen: …and why would somebody in their 40’s be doing that when they’re busy working full time? You clearly don’t understand the meaning of “millennial”. Not to mind that earning a small few pound from cutting a few lawns isn’t going to achieve any serious earnings.
I know of many millennials who are already working a second job part time on top of their full time job and are only barely getting by.
@Cullen Cullen: Give up the coffee’s,Netflix and go around cutting some lawns and we will be all sorted. Why didn’t we all think of this sooner.
@Colm Coughlan: all them avacado lattes, spent 13 grand on them myself last year alone
@Cullen Cullen: so you bought a house when they weren’t expensive. Then you rented it out and made a profit from it meaning you could buy another house. I’ll be round to cut your grass so seeing as you’ll obviously pay well with the money you’re making.
@Jen Mc: I’m on below average salary so I can’t afford your gardening services. I’d love to be able to buy a house in Swords too… or Dalkey or Howth. Check out this property I found using Daft
https://www.daft.ie/for-sale/semi-detached-house-16-coney-park-coneyboro-athy-co-kildare/4262332 sounds like you could easily afford a house in Kildare with your 320k budget. Lucky you
So the banks now allow you to borrow 4 times your salary. Most, but not all, will purchase a house as a couple, so that would be 4 times the combined wage, or 8 times the average wage. Tin foil hat anyone!
It is still possible to buy houses, if you really want. But you need some flexibility AND self control. Friends of mine have nearly 100k/annum salary as a couple, but are always complaining, that there are no affordable homes. When checking their social media timelines, they are doing short trips to Barcelona, London and so on at least once a month. Every week there is at least one photo of great food at some restaurant and on weekends parties with friends in the city. Both have the latest iPhones, AirPods Max, are fans of Netflix and Disney+ series and live in a very expensive apartment. But of course, it’s the fault of the greedy banks and st*pid politicians, that they can’t afford a house.
There must be a fair few people earning a multiple of that €48.000 to push that up.
Most people I know or meet Get nowhere near that until maybe much later in life.
No way that figure is correct.
Soon enough the economic plan of lowering the age of borrowing will be in place… MWaaaahaaaaaw!
97% Owned on Netflix describes what is really going on here and who is really in control. I am afraid it makes for uncomfortable watching. FF, FG nor SF haven’t a hope in sorting it….
have your say