Property register shows few sales and one at €8,000

LESS THAN one per cent of the State’s houses changed hands last year with some properties being sold for as little as €8,000, according to the long-awaited property price register.

Published yesterday for the first time, the residential property price register – propertypriceregister.ie– puts exact prices on all houses sold in the Republic dating back to the beginning of 2010.

It shows that just 17,621 houses were sold across the State last year. At the height of the boom in 2006 more than 114,000 mortgages were issued to Irish homeowners.

Unsurprisingly, Dublin saw most activity in 2011, although just 5,725 homes sold in the city last year. Longford was where fewest properties changed hands with just 139 transactions in the county in 2011. One house, on Richmond Street in Longford town, sold for €13,000 while another house in the county, in Moatefarrell, sold for €11,427.64. A house in Boyle, Co Roscommon, sold for €9,160 with the sale of the property described on the register as “atypical”. Another property in the townland of Kilglassin, south Roscommon, sold for €8,000.

The register is compiled by the Property Services Regulatory Authority (PSRA) using stamp duty figures from the Revenue Commissioners and details are limited to price, address and date of sale. Details such as property size or number of rooms are not included.

The PRSA stressed that the new register was not intended as a “property price index”. Minister for Justice Alan Shatter said that it was an essential step in bringing first-time buyers back into the market and improving transparency.

“In recent years, because of the steep downturn in the property market, it has been difficult to get accurate information on property prices,” he said. “This uncertainty has led to a lack of investor confidence and has contributed to stagnation . . . particularly among first-time buyers.”

He claimed the register would help “to remove some of this uncertainty, restore some confidence in the property market and provide transparency in residential property sale prices.”

While it may help the market recover it is also likely to feed the nation’s interest in house prices and is likely to spawn endless dinner party conversations.

A quick trawl of the site, for instance, reveals that in 2010, house prices on Ranelagh’s leafy Beechwood Avenue ranged from €655,000 to €920,000 while last year the best price achieved for a house on the road was €780,000.

Things appear to be getting worse this year and of the three houses sold on the avenues in 2012 the most expensive was a home on Beechwood Avenue Lower which sold for €690,00.

The same story is repeated across the river where houses on Griffith Avenue in Drumcondra were selling for up to €760,000 in 2010. Last year the most expensive house on that road sold for €557,500.