Tapering in April and May of House Price Increases Not Material as Affordability is Stretched - Brokers Ireland

Press Release

Wednesday 15th July, 2026   

Commenting on today’s CSO Residential Property Price Index for May, Brokers Ireland said the slowing in the rate of increase to 6.2% in the 12 months to April, and now to May, the lowest annual rise since February 2024, doesn’t amount to anything approaching a material difference for most aspiring home buyers.

“Affordability remains stretched to the limit for many home buyers,” Rachel McGovern, Deputy Chief Executive at Brokers Ireland said.

While there is a positive trend in that home commencements and completions were up in Q1 2026, it’s still, ”not remotely sufficient to meet ongoing and pent-up demand.”

She said it looks like home completions for this year could be of the order of about 40,000 units. “While going in the right direction, this is really only a marginal increase on the 36,284 delivered last year.”

She said we have a vastly divergent economy where high salaries abound, particularly in Dublin, pushing up prices for homes while those on average wages in whole swathes of the economy struggle to compete.

“An added worry is, what will happen to interest rates, with geopolitical volatility at an all-time high. Just as we thought stability might land, with a one and done ECB rate increase in June, instability has erupted once more, threatening that hope,” she said.

She acknowledged that new measures are underway around infrastructure, planning and zoning more land. “The new Planning and Development regulations just announced by the Department of Housing are also welcome, but they will only ever address a certain cohort of the market.”

“We need the overall government package to deliver in a manner, and at a pace that we’ve not seen heretofore,” she said.

Ends

Note to Editors: Brokers Ireland operates the ‘Future Financial Experts’ Transition Year programme aimed at communicating good financial skills to students and creating awareness around financial concepts.