Family homes on the market for €80,000

BY ENDA CUNNINGHAM

 An average family home in Galway County or City now has a price tag of €80,000 or €130,000, according to new research from property website Daft.ie.

In a report published this week, the average asking price of a three-bed semi-detached house in the county is just €81,000, while a similar property in the city is asking €132,000.

The dramatic figures show county homes have dropped in value by up to 70%, while the city has been hit just as badly by the downturn at around 64%.

Three-bed semis are traditionally seen as the ‘staple diet’ of first-time buyers, and are generally taken as an indication of property market performance.

Overall, asking prices – which should be differentiated from eventual selling prices – for houses in County Galway are averaging just over €133,378, after they plummeted by more than 15.2% over the past year.

The average asking price for a home in County Galway now stands at €133,378 – that’s down 58.7% since the peak of the market, while larger homes have been harder-hit with cuts of up to 70%.

And while the drop in Galway City was much lower at 6.6%, prices for a standard three-bed semi are down to one-third of their boom time values.

However, with a five-bed detached property now averaging €166,000, that means the higher-end of the market has been badly hit.

During the boom, many such homes were selling for up to €530,000, which represents a drop of almost 70%.

For a one-bed apartment, the average asking price is now €51,000; for a two-bed terraced it is €54,000; for a three-bed semi it is €81,000 and for a four-bed bungalow, it is €152,000.

The report shows the average asking price for a one-bed apartment in Galway City is now €67,000; for a two-bed terraced it is €83,000; for a four-bed bungalow it is €219,000 and for a five-bed detached, the average is €307,000.

Conversely, the report found that parts of Dublin are seeing a rise in asking prices, of between 2.1% and 12.2%.

Ronan Lyons, economist with Daft.ie said: “It is likely that over the next 12-24 months, we may have to get used to the idea of prices rising in some places – particularly urban areas – while they 

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.