Fall in number of homes sold in 2016 so far

The number of homes sold in Ireland in the first half of 2016 fell by 3 per cent according to Daft.ie’s analysis of Property Price Register (PPR) data.

There were 19,251 properties sold in January-June 2016, down from 19,826 over the same period in 2015.

The fall in transactions has been attributed by some to the introduction of the Central Bank of Ireland’s new mortgage lending rules in January 2015.

However, Trinity College Dublin economist Ronan Lyons told the Irish Independent: “It does look like the first half of the year is below, but it looks like being above the first half of 2014.

“The last three months of 2014 and first three to six months of 2015 saw a rush because of the Central Bank rules. People were worried about the rules coming in.

“When there’s a change in the rules, you get these spikes over three or six months which makes comparisons difficult. Compared with 2014, it looks reasonably solid. There’s a tendency for some on the selling side to say transactions are down because of the rules, but that’s probably a little too excessive.”