THERE HAS BEEN a slowdown in the going rate of house transaction prices in Dublin, with data suggesting there is a weakening demand amid costly sale tags and economic uncertainty.

Prices rose by just 0.8% in the year to September, the slowest rate of increase since 2020, according to the latest Daft Sales Report.

The average price a home is advertised at – known as ‘list price – was higher. This rose nationally by 3% in the year to September 2026.

While this is roughly half the rate of inflation seen a year ago, it’s still an eye watering 44% above pre-Covid levels. They’re 7.5% below their Celtic Tiger peak.

Nationally, the average list price across all property types in the third quarter of the year was just under €445,000.

But with list prices now rising faster than transaction prices, the typical gap between the initial price a home is listed at and the ultimate transaction price has narrowed to 2.6% nationally – down from 6.8% a year earlier and the smallest gap since 2023.

Commenting on the report, report author Ronan Lyons said the figures appear to reflect weaker demand rather than stronger supply of homes, amid broader uncertainty in the economy.

“Ideally, price pressures would ease because second-hand supply has finally recovered after collapsing during Covid,” Lyons said.

“However, for second-hand homes at least, the figures say otherwise: the flow of homes coming onto the market has been flat for three years.

“What has changed is how quickly those homes sell. Outside Dublin, at least some demand has switched to new homes but in Dublin, sales of both new and second-hand homes fell.”

This, said Lyons, was the “clearest sign of genuinely softer demand”, and a signal to watch in the coming quarters.

The slowdown in housing price inflation is most noticeable in and around the capital.

In Dublin, list prices in September were 2.7% higher than a year ago, while in the rest of Leinster the rate of increase was 2.1%.

Across the other major cities, the increase in the year to September was just under 6% in Cork, Galway and Limerick cities but 11% in Waterford.

That means that the average price of a three-bedroom semi-d in Dublin was €635,000, with similar in Cork costing €431,000.

The same type of home would have cost €618,000 in Galway city, €376,000 in Limerick city and €313,000 in Waterford.