DUBLIN — Irish house prices are still climbing. But the pace is easing and for buyers who have been waiting years for a break, the numbers from the Central Statistics Office make for cautious reading.
Residential property prices rose by 6.8% nationally in the 12 months to February 2026, down from 7.1% in January. The median price paid for a home across Ireland now stands at €390,000.
In Dublin, the median hits €500,000. In Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown the most expensive county in the State it is €681,500.
The slowdown is real, but do not mistake it for relief. Prices are still rising faster than wages. Supply is still falling well short of demand. And competition for the homes that do come to market remains fierce.
Outside Dublin Is Where Prices Are Running Hottest
Dublin’s 5.6% annual growth looks almost moderate compared to the rest of the country. Outside the capital, prices rose 7.8% in the year to February 2026.
The Midlands Laois, Longford, Offaly and Westmeath recorded the strongest growth of any region at 15.3%. Buyers priced out of Dublin are moving further out, and they are pushing prices up everywhere they go.
The most expensive postcode in Ireland is A94 Blackrock in Dublin where the median price reached €841,250 in the 12 months to February 2026. The cheapest is F45 in Castlerea, Roscommon, at €153,000. That gap tells you almost everything about the two different property markets operating simultaneously in this country.
Homes are selling above asking price almost everywhere. Nationally, buyers are paying around 6% above the listed price on average. In Dublin, that premium jumps to 8 to 9%.
Ireland Is Still Not Building Enough
More than 36,000 new homes were completed in 2025 the highest annual total since 2011 and a 20% increase on 2024. That is the good news.
The bad news is that Ireland needs between 45,000 and 50,000 new homes every year to meet demand. The gap between what is being built and what is needed is not closing — it is widening as the population keeps growing.
Knight Frank Research estimates that 48,000 units per year are required out to 2030 across all property types. The ESRI has revised its 2026 completions forecast to around 36,000, while the Central Bank of Ireland projects completions rising gradually to 37,000 this year and 44,500 by 2028 but only if planning and infrastructure bottlenecks ease.
Building costs are also moving in the wrong direction. The wholesale price index for construction materials rose 37.1% in the five years to February 2026. That makes every new home more expensive to build and ultimately more expensive to buy.
The Middle East Factor
One variable that most forecasts did not fully account for is the Iran conflict and what it has done to energy and construction costs since late February.
Mortgage adviser Trevor Grant, chair of Irish Mortgage Advisors, warned this week that the rate of house price growth, while easing, “could be short-lived if the conflict in the Middle East is not resolved soon.”
M10News has been reporting on how rising construction costs linked to the Iran crisis are making Ireland’s housing delivery problem harder to solve. If energy prices stay elevated through the summer, the ESRI’s forecast of 3 to 5% price growth for 2026 may prove optimistic.
Mortgage Rates: Stable for Now
The average Irish mortgage rate sits at around 3.58% down from the highs of 2023 following ECB rate cuts through 2024 and 2025. The ECB has signalled a pause in further reductions, so buyers should plan for stable rather than falling rates through the rest of this year.
Every 0.25% shift in rates adds or removes roughly €13 per €100,000 borrowed per month. Not enough to change whether most people can afford to buy. But enough to matter when the average Dublin purchase sits at €500,000.
What Government Schemes Are Available
The Help-to-Buy scheme has been extended to 2029, offering first-time buyers up to €30,000 or 10% of the purchase price as a tax rebate on new-build homes. The First Home Scheme bridges the gap between a buyer’s mortgage and the purchase price through shared equity and has helped thousands into homes that would otherwise have been out of reach.
Neither scheme fixes the underlying problem. But for buyers who qualify, they remain meaningful tools in a market where every advantage counts.
The Bottom Line for 2026
Prices are not falling. Demand is not weakening. Supply is not catching up. The market is cooling slightly at the edges — but the structural forces that have driven Irish house prices up 179% since the crash low of 2013 have not changed.
National price growth of 3 to 5% is the consensus forecast for 2026. The national index is now 25% above its highest point at the peak of the 2007 boom. That figure more than any other tells you where the Irish property market actually stands.
Editing by M10News Housing Desk | © 2026 M10News. All rights reserved. Unauthorised reproduction is prohibited.
M10News has been reporting on the housing crisis and its impact on working families across Ireland, on the government’s 300,000-home delivery plan and on the latest Goodbody homebuilder survey and what it means for supply in 2026.
