PROPERTY PRICE INFLATION has slowed for the second consecutive month this year, with prices outside of Dublin continuing to rise at a higher rate than those in the capital.

Figures from the Central Statistics Office’s Residential Property Price Index show property prices increased by 14.4% nationally in the year to May of this year, down from 14.5% recorded in April.

House prices saw an increase of 11.7% in Dublin in the same timeframe, while property outside Dublin was 16.6% more expensive than a year earlier.

Property inflation reached its highest rise in seven years in the 12 months leading to March 2022.

The latest CSO figures show a drop in property prices for two consecutive months this year with property price inflation down 0.8% in the 12 months leading up to April 2022 from the year to March 2022.

Although property prices nationally have increased by 120.5% from their low in early 2013, they are still down from their peak in the early 2000s.

Dublin residential property prices are 9.3% lower than their February 2007 peak, while residential property prices in the rest of Ireland are 2.3% lower than their May 2007 peak.

However, house price inflation is still exponentially higher than what it was less than 18 months ago, with the growth in property prices from May 2020 to May 2021 just over a third of the current rate of inflation, at 5.4%.

The number of properties bought at market price also increased in the 12 months to May of this year, up 16.3% at 3,731 houses purchased at market prices.

The disparity in urban versus rural property inflation was also reflected in Daft.ie Sales Report published late last month, which indicated that rural areas are still seeing the largest increases in house prices, despite the rural-urban gap narrowing.

The report found that outside the cities, prices rose by 11.4% in the year to June 2022, down from a peak rate of inflation of 16.8% a year ago. In Dublin, the year-on-year change in prices was 6.6%, compared to just 3.4% at the end of 2021.