Demand for housing across Ireland is up 17 per cent over the last 12 months, according to research by property website Daft.ie.
The website said demand for new homes in May 2023 is up a “staggering” 114 per cent compared to May 2022.
Overall demand in Dublin is double the national rate at 34 per cent.
Eighteen of the 26 Republic counties have seen an increase in demand.
The demand for new housing in Meath is up 29 per cent, Limerick and Offaly both saw a demand increase of 26 per cent, while housing demand in Louth is 25 per cent higher than a year ago.
Homes with a listed price of between €400,000-600,000 saw the largest increase in demand of 38 per cent.
Daft.ie said the help-to-buy scheme is a likely contributor to an almost 18-fold increase in demand for new homes within the price bracket of €400,000-500,000.
The help-to-buy scheme helps first-time buyers purchase a newly-built house or apartment and one-off self-build homes.
It only applies to properties that cost €500,000 or less.
Demand in three of the four cities outside Dublin also saw a heightened level of demand compared to last year – by 26 per cent in Limerick, 13 per cent in Cork and 9 per cent in Galway.
Daft.ie said its analysis shows demand has strengthened year-on-year.
However, it warned that supply in the sales market over the last 12 months was not adequate to meet demand.
“The Irish housing market is in desperate need of increased supply over years and indeed decades to come,” it said.
Demand was assessed through the growth and change in enquiries sent on property listings across their property sales section of the website.
