Cavan bucks national trend
Still ‘Cheaper to buy’ than to build – Woods
County Cavan is ahead of the trend for second-hand property values following a new report by Sherry FitzGerald, which found the average value of second-hand homes in Ireland increased by two per cent in the first quarter of 2024. In Cavan, however, it’s five per cent.
Overall, average values have increased by 5.1% over the past 12 months when compared to annualised growth of 3.6% in the year ending quarter one 2023.
Declan Woods from Sherry Fitzgerald in Cavan Town says that the primary percentage of stock in the county is second hand owing to the fact that there’s little new-build activity. “It’s predominantly second hand sales in our market and it’s very robust at the moment,” he added.
“It’s cheaper to buy than it is to build and that is a massive factor.” Meanwhile, in a review of transaction activity, the report reveals that last year saw housing sales, nationally, remain relatively stable. Excluding block sales and homes acquired for social housing, there were almost 60,200 housing transactions in 2023, according to the Property Price Register (PPR). This was just 1.1% higher than the year previous.
Mr Woods says that locally the driving factors include lack of stock and the inability of first-time buyers to find a property. “Walk-in properties are hitting 10% on guide price when they hit the market,” he continued, before adding that the Croí Conaithe scheme “is not enough to make a big difference". The scheme provides funding to support the building of apartments for sale to owner-occupiers and aims to bridge the current gap between the cost of building apartments and the market sale price.
“We’ll see some advantage to it, but it’s more applicable to the fixer-upper market,” added Mr Woods.
“And there has always been a demand for these types of properties. Under the scheme, all building works must be paid for in advance of the grant being paid out, so it’s not really a massive game changer to the market.”
Nationally, the regional centres experience a ‘mixed bag’ in terms of second-hand sales. Cork saw an increase in transactions of 1.3%, while Galway and Limerick saw activity in the second-hand market decline by -1.3% and -3.1% respectively. Conversely, second-hand activity in Dublin remains strong - recording a 5.1% increase in second-hand transactions versus 2022.
The report also highlights that, while it’s anticipated that house completions levels will improve again this year, the desired V-shaped recovery in supply has not occurred.
As a result the deficit in supply is likely to persist. This shortage in new supply has had a ripple effect, adversely affecting the supply of other properties to the market and this pattern is particularly noticeable in more rural locations.