The year started with the Government on the back foot having to defend a pre-election claim that 40,000 new houses would be built in 2024. This was based on research by Deutsche Bank and cherry picked by politicians as it gave the highest predicted output.
EY and the Central Bank both forecasted 32,000; others even less. In the end, 2024 recorded 30,168 new houses, 7 per cent down on the previous year and 24 per cent less than Deutsche’s estimate.
Fewer than 1,000 new homes were sold on average each month in the year to September 2025, about 60 per cent of which were bought by first-time buyers who paid an average of €443,000. This was a 26 per cent higher average price than the end of 2020. Buyers of new houses continued to be squeezed by competition from the State and private investors.
Out of the 10,507 new apartments built in the year to September 2025, an average of just 90 were sold each month at an average price of €529,910 nationally and €827,863 in Dublin city. The remaining 89 per cent were built or bought by the State or investors. Over the same period, 16,899 new scheme houses were built but only 10,042 (59 per cent) sold to the general public.
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House purchases also show us where people are buying, and increasingly that is further away from the main urban areas. According to the CSO, property prices in Dublin rose by 5.3 per cent and prices outside Dublin rose by 9.2 per cent in August 2025 compared with August 2024. Although arguably starting from a lower base, in early 2025, the highest house price inflation was to be seen in the border areas from Cavan to Donegal. But by August this had reverted to the midlands (Laois, Longford, Offaly and Westmeath) at 12 per cent.
The only credible source of rental data is the Residential Tenancies Board (RTB) rent index. Unfortunately, the RTB only published its rent data for the first half of 2025 at the end of November. To be useful, data needs to be timely. The RTB data showed that in Q2 2025, 34 per cent of new tenancy rents across the State were over €2,000. The cheapest place to rent in the Republic is Carndonagh, in Co Donegal, at €921 per month.
The average rent for new tenancies in Dublin city was €2,178 in Q2 2025, followed by Galway city at €1,850 per month. The average rent for new tenancies in Dublin county stood at €2,230 per month compared with €1,713 per month in the GDA (excluding Dublin) and €1,362 outside the GDA. According to the Council of the European Union, Dubliners are now paying 62 per cent of their salary on rent.
To put this in context, in a new tenancy, the cheapest nationwide average rent for a one-bed apartment or house is now more expensive than the mortgage repayments for a first-time buyer (€1,345) on a €350,000 one-bed house over 30 years.
But the most important issue is homelessness. When put on a graph, homelessness is rising at the same time as new housing output. The more we build, the more our homelessness numbers rise. Something is very wrong here.
From November 2024 to November this year, homelessness is up more than 10 per cent to 16,766 people. Of this, 5,374 are children, up 17 per cent in the past year. Homelessness has been normalised but it is neither normal nor acceptable to have children growing up in hotel bedrooms or B&Bs. Reducing homelessness should be the measure of housing policy success.
None of this is surprising given the bigger-picture trends in housing over the past year (or years), one of which has been the polarisation of housing discussion and its reduction to facile narratives of Yimby or Nimby; pro- or anti-regulation; and a lot of simplistic takes on what are quite technical and complex issues. See judicial reviews and “shedsits”, for example.
[ Judicial reviews are not the problem – and deregulation is no answerOpens in new window ]
The Government appears to have outsourced the writing of housing policy to the private sector and property lobbyists got everything they wanted in the budget. Rent brakes have been unlocked and apartment standards are being reduced. The direction of travel is very much being determined by the demands of industry.
What does it all mean for 2026?
From the new legislation alone, it seems that rents are most certainly going to rise in 2026. Regulations have been changed to allow rents to increase significantly to attract new investment from large funds. There will be no let-up in increased homelessness. And no matter how many new houses get built next year, if salaries go up and interest rates go down – very likely, and neither of which the Government has much control over – house prices are only going in one direction.
Next year will also be interesting if the European Commission continues taking a greater interest in housing, an area that has traditionally been a national competence. Who knows what they might find. Ireland is not the only country to be experiencing a long-running omnishambles in housing, but the roots of the problems are similar in most jurisdictions: reduced State involvement and prioritising market demands.
The market has a role to play but it is the Government’s job to protect society from its worst excesses. Across Europe, governments are neglecting that role and the results are similar everywhere: less new housing, rising rents, overcrowding, increased house prices and homelessness. This is also playing into the hands of far-right parties (hence the EU’s interest), as it may increasingly do here next year.
The housing year ended bizarrely with the State emailing landlords asking them not to sell their properties and promoting patronising advice for young people moving back into their parents’ home. Neither inspires much confidence for 2026.
