Looking for an index of house price indices

Buying a house is already a confusing enough process, especially for first-time buyers, without the recent arrival of a raft of confusing and often contradictory house price indices from several Irish institutions.

You can take your pick from estate agent Sherry FitzGerald, mortgage lender First Active and the Irish Life & Permanent banc assurance combine. In addition, the Department of the Environment brings out its own figures.

It would be bad enough if they all came out at the same time but they don't. There can be weeks between publication by the various groups. And when they do emerge there can be big differences in the figures. The most recent to emerge was First Active's figures for 1999, which showed a fall in the rate of increase in house prices to 21 per cent.

At the end of last month, the Irish Permanent index, compiled with the ESRI, reported a rise of 17.9 per cent in 1999.

Sherry FitzGerald produced the first set of figures for 1999, showing a 26.4 per cent rise - a figure apparently arrived at on the strength of 239 sales in and around Dublin. The Department of the Environment will not get around to producing figures until next month.

Would it not be more helpful to say simply that prices are rising but at a slower rate - the only point on which all agree?