Irish house prices rise 5.5% year-on-year in May

DUBLIN - Irish residential property prices rose at the fastest annual pace since the end of 2018 in May, gaining 5.5% on the year as the COVID-19 shutdown of construction compounded a long-standing mismatch between low supply and high demand, data showed on Wednesday.

While the pandemic briefly halted seven years of unbroken price growth last year, a second shutdown of construction from January to April has sparked a sharp rise. Overall, prices are 13.5% below a 2007 peak before the bursting of a property bubble.

Property websites have reported that asking price inflation is running at twice as high a rate, up 13% in June, according to the country's largest property websites Daft.ie and MyHome.ie.