Housing stock rises while rate of growth halves - Daft

The level of housing stock for sale has increased, while the rate of growth in asking prices for homes almost halved in the last 12 months, according to a new report from Daft.

The property website's Q3 sales report indicates that list-price inflation for houses in the year to September was 3%, compared to 5.8% this time last year.

Continuing a trend of recent reports, it also found that yearly asking-price growth for the July-September period was significantly higher in major cities outside the capital (Dublin +2.7%, Waterford +11%, Cork/Galway/Limerick/Galway +6%).

The research also shows the number of second-hand homes for sale nationally on daft.ie at the start of this month was 13,800, which was 12.5% higher than at the same time in 2025.

However, Daft said that figure is still only around half of the pre-pandemic norm of more than 26,000.

According to the report, the average asking price for a residential property nationally between July and September was €445,000.

While it said list prices on the property portal are 44% above pre-Covid levels, but still 7.5% below the Celtic Tiger peak.

In terms of selling prices of homes, the Daft research suggests they rose by 0.8% annually in September - the slowest rate of increase since 2020.

The study also found the typical gap between initial listing prices and ultimate transaction prices, which is "a measure of market heat - narrowed to 2.6% nationally, down from 6.8% a year earlier and was the smallest gap since 2023".

Commenting on the report, its author and TCD Economics Professor Ronan Lyons said:

"Ideally, price pressures would ease because second-hand supply has finally recovered after collapsing during Covid.

"However, for second-hand homes at least, the figures say otherwise: the flow of homes coming onto the market has been flat for three years.

"What has changed is how quickly those homes sell. Outside Dublin, at least some demand has switched to new homes but in Dublin, sales of both new and second-hand homes fell. That is the clearest sign of genuinely softer demand, and a signal to watch in the coming quarters," Prof Lyons added.