With momentum building over the first quarter of 2016, it is expected that Ireland’s market for residential property will see a resurgence this year, as reported in a recent market survey by MyHome.ie. Yet, according to the study, while this does paint a positive picture for Ireland as a whole, with prices growing as hoped, it is expected that Dublin will fall behind somewhat.

Despite having seen declines towards the back-end of last year, it has been seen in the survey that asking prices for the sale of newly-listed residential properties saw a notable rise of some 2.1% across Ireland for 2016’s first quarter, with a 0.9% increase reported in Dublin. Yet, despite the rise in Dublin not being anything to shout home about based on value alone, the news is received well as a stark contrast to the declines seen over the previous two quarters.

As part of those predictions made, it has been highlighted that price inflation for Irish housing is hoped to generate an increase of some 5% for 2016, with much of the increase seen outside of the walls of Dublin – this, primarily being due to constraints on affordability perceived in Dublin itself.

One of the driving factors to which we can attribute some of the growth is expected to be the change in lending rules for the Central Bank. Expected to make it far easier for individuals to purchase properties, the change is expected to see buyer interest combined with positive levels of supply due to property sellers having predicted the falls in pricing for Dublin properties and therefore bringing properties to the market over the course of 2015.

Providing food for thought on the recent developments, Conall MacCoille, Chief Economist for Davy, and also the report’s author, commented: “Overall, home building levels look set to remain depressed for some time and while this will support Irish house prices, it will hurt activity levels.”