Local house prices jump, defying national trends
House prices and rents are rising in Kilkenny despite falling elsewhere, a survey has revealed.
The average price of a three bedroom house in Kilkenny jumped 6.7% between October and late February, according to statistics from daft,ie, a Dublin-based website that lists houses for sale. That was the second largest increase in the country. Only Monaghan posted a bigger gain.
The average price of a three-bedroom house in County Kilkenny now stands at E260,000.
House prices in Dublin and Galway are falling, according to the same website. Prices in Galway City tumbled almost 11% while prices nationwide were down 0.1% between October and February.
Supply and demand
Demand for housing in the city is fuelling the local increases, according to daft.ie. The average price of a three-bedroom house in the city has risen to E274,000 last month from E257,000 in October.
"Kilkenny is an attractive place for long distance commutes to Dublin and shorter commutes to Waterford and its cheaper than either of them," said daft.ie economist Ronan Lyons. "The areas such as Dublin that have gone down have been the expensive areas. All those areas have gone down by a few percent. Interest rate hikes have hit people hard."
Rents
Daft.ie is due to issue a separate report today (Wednesday) that will show rents in Kilkenny are also rising.
"In Kilkenny, rents have increased strongly, despite the number of properties listed for rent more than doubling in the last 12 months. The average rent for a three-bedroom house in Kilkenny City in early 2007 was €861, a 12% increase on the same figure in early 2006," said Mr Lyons.
Not everybody agrees with daft.ie's analysis.
Declan McCann, who runs First Active in the city, says prices are treading water.
"My feeling is that house prices are maintaining their value more than rising," said Mr McCann, who has more than 28 years experience in lending money locally.
"I think that it is currently more of a buyer's market than a seller's market. Sellers have to be realistic about their property value. Property value inflation has slowed."
Mr McCann attributed the slowdown to interest rate hikes, which make it more expensive to borrow money, and increases in the cost of heating over the past 15 months.
Kilkenny's house prices are amongst the most expensive in Ireland despite the fact that people in Kilkenny have the second lowest amount of disposable income nationwide.
Turn to second section for more property news and houses for sale.
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