THE PRICE of the average apartment in Dublin fell by 6.3 per cent last month – and is now just 38 per cent of its price at the peak of the property bubble, new figures have shown.

The Central Statistics Office’s residential property price index showed that the price of the average Irish home fell by 2.2 per cent in February.

Prices have now fallen by an average of 17.8 per cent in the last 12 months – the fastest rate of annual decline since the end of 2009. The monthly drop is equal to that of last October, which itself was the steepest drop in a single month since March 2009.

Apartments in Dublin saw the most dramatic drop, with prices down by 6.3 per cent in just 12 months, confirming a return to declining prices after their values rose in November and December of last year.

Apartments in the capital are now worth 22.9 per cent less than they were at this point last year, and have seen prices plummet by 62 per cent since the peak of the market in February 2007.

Properties outside of Dublin also had a torrid month, with values falling by 3 per cent – double the rate of decline they had experienced in February 2011.

Those prices are now down by an average of 16.4 per cent in a year, and by 45 per cent from their peak prices in 2007.

Houses in the capital fell by a comparatively modest 0.7 per cent, and are down by 20.2 per cent in the last 12 months. The value of those homes is now an average of 56 per cent lower than their peak in early 2007.

Read: Ministers add to Household Charge confusion >

More: Central Bank warns: Ireland’s economy is still ‘fragile’ >

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