Take the report for the first quarter of the year from MyHome, the property website. To start with, fewer than 11,000 homes were available for sale on the website in March – a fresh record low.
National asking prices were up 8pc over the year, with annual asking prices outside Dublin rising by over 9pc. The average mortgage loan for a house purchase is now almost €320,000 – up 7pc on the year.
First-time buyer mortgage drawdowns rose to 26,200 last year, their highest level since 2007, but mover drawdowns fell to just 9,000 loans, now 20pc below pre-Covid-19 levels.
The report found asking prices nationally rose by 1.7pc on the quarter, by 2.6pc in Dublin and by 1.1pc in the rest of the country. This means the median asking price for new homes nationally in the quarter was €375,000. In Dublin it was €450,000 and in the rest of the country it was €315,000.
Last year, prices nationally surpassed the Celtic Tiger peak for the first time. The data from 2024 shows the prices are now 17pc above the boom-time highs, so make that about 20pc by now and hitting 25pc by the end of this year.
Property prices rose at twice the rate in 2024 than they did in 2023, putting further pressure on homebuyers. Record low supply and continued surging demand are still driving the market.
What hope then do young workers have of getting on the property ladder, whether in Dublin or anywhere else? The stereotypical “Coppers couple” of a teacher and a garda who met in Copper Face Jacks nightclub in Dublin are bearing the brunt of the housing crisis.
A lot of chatter recently from the Government has centred on the housing crisis damaging our attractiveness for multinational companies whose staff can’t find somewhere to live.
But essential workers – such as teachers, gardaí and nurses – not being able to get on the property ladder is not good for society. The annual teacher conference takes place this week, with Education Minister Helen McEntee entering the lion’s den for the first time.
The INTO, TUI and ASTI Easter conference season is something of a mainstay of the calendar, with the minister of the day often getting something of a hostile reception.
The agenda tends to be dictated by the staffroom issues of the day, be it teachers’ pay, class sizes, funding for schools, curriculum development or problems with the Department of Education.
The fundamental issue facing the teaching profession now is the housing crisis. Becoming a teacher is a noble aspiration for any student coming out of college, providing vital guidance for generations to come.
But those young people will look at entering the teaching profession and wonder how will they get housing as they do their training in their first school or seek out their first permanent role. For the teachers’ unions, housing has to be a top priority.
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