€40m in Galway property sales in just six weeks

The property market in Galway is showing signs of a renewed boom, with sales completed on almost €40 million worth of homes in the first six weeks of this year – up a massive 55% on the same period last year.

Local estate agents say there has been a significant recovery in market, and these figures are down to an end-of-year boom last year – sales can take up to three months to appear on the Government’s official Property Price Register.

According to the Register, sales were ‘stamped’ and completed on more than €38.2m worth of residential properties between January 1 and February 18 this year.

That’s up 55% on the €24.6m worth of property sales completed were completed in the corresponding period in 2014.

The actual number of homes sold was 225, compared to 169 last year – an increase of one-third.

Agents have reported an “extremely busy” market over the past twelve months.

Niall Browne of O’Donnellan & Joyce Auctioneers told the Connacht Tribune: “September and October was a really busy period with consistent sales levels. Each agent in our office was selling three, four or five houses per week.

“People in the city are selling up their traditional semis and moving to the country, so there are sales in both areas.

“Equity in their homes is increasing, and you also have negative equity mortgages [where debt is carried to the mortgage on the new property] which are helping things along.

“The city has recovered – prices are up 10% to 15% over the past twelve months, but they have stabilised now. You won’t see much of an increase in prices this year, unless it’s a particularly ‘stand out’ house.

“There was a period last summer where you would have four or five people bidding on the same property. That’s not really the case now; there’s interest, but people know their limit, and won’t go beyond it.

“We’ve got the most sensible market in the country now – prices have stabilised, sales are consistent. It’s not like parts of Dublin, where prices are going through the roof again.

“In the county in price terms, things haven’t recovered too much at all. There was no activity for three or four years during the recession. People are buying now in the likes of Corofin and Claregalway, but prices are at much the same level,” said Mr Browne.

Comparative figures from the Property Price Register for the first six weeks of 2013 show there was almost €17m worth of homes sold (128 units); in 2012, the figure was €15.1m (99 units); in 2011, it was €20.8m (96 units) and in 2010, the figure was €21m (90 units).

The official Register records figures from 2010 onwards.