House prices across the State continued to climb in August, but there has been a fall in the rate of growth for third successive month.
The latest figures suggest that recent European Central Bank interest rate rises are having an impact.
According to the Permanent TSB/ESRI figures published today, house prices climbed by 1 per cent last month, and growth rates across all sectors of the market are the same or lower than the growth rates experienced in July.
However, the rate of growth so far this year has still been higher than expected with an increase in prices nationally in the first eight months of the year of 10.2 per cent compared to 9.3 per cent for the full year of 2005 and 4.4 per cent for the same period last year.
The house price index also reveals that in the 12 months from August 2005 to August 2006 inclusive, the growth in national prices was 15.4 per cent, unchanged from the rate of growth to July.
The average price paid for a house nationally in August of this year was €306,173, €28,000 higher than that recorded for December 2005.
"There is a clear trend of slowing price growth in the Irish housing market, following the recent series of ECB rate increases," said Niall O'Grady of Permanent TSB.
"While over the course of this year we have seen some market sectors experiencing a lower growth rate than in previous months, August is the first month this year where all market sectors experienced the same or a reduced monthly growth rate," he added. "All this points to the heat being taken out the market and house price growth reaching the top of the curve."
House prices in Dublin and outside Dublin both grew by 1 per cent and 0.9 per cent respectively in August and by 17.2 per cent and 15.5 per cent in the 12 months to August 2006 inside and outside Dublin.
The average price paid for a house in Dublin last month was €412,877, while outside Dublin the price was €264,622.