State must build thousands of ‘genuinely affordable’ houses, says Cork TD

With house prices in Cork city the second highest in the country last year, up 6.3% during 2024, a newly-elected TD has said the incoming government needs urgently to build thousands of “genuinely affordable” homes to tackle house price inflation.

The average price of a home in Cork city was €347,263 at the end of the fourth quarter of 2024, the latest house price report published by property website Daft.ie has shown.

Cork city prices were above the national average, which was €332,000, with Leeside coming second only to Dublin, where the average cost was €442,909.

In Cork county, the average cost of a home was €279,201, representing a 7.7% year-on-year increase on 2023.

Nationally, house prices rose by an average of 9% during 2024.

The typical listed price nationwide in the final quarter of the year was €332,109, 1.4% higher than in the third quarter of 2024.

Pádraig Rice, newly-elected Social Democrats TD for Cork South Central, said that the incoming government would need to adopt a radically different housing policy if it expected to see the situation improve.

“This level of year-on-year house price inflation is not sustainable,” said Mr Rice.

“Too many people in my generation are being locked out of homeownership.”

He added that there was only one way for the incoming government to solve the ongoing housing crisis.

“The State must step in and build thousands of houses that are sold at genuinely affordable prices.

“The Government needs a new approach, they need to start doing things differently,” said Mr Rice.

“More of the same simply won’t work.”

In Dublin, house prices rose by 9% last year, matching the national average increase, rising for the fourth consecutive quarter in Dublin, and marking the highest rate of inflation seen in the capital since late 2017.

Galway city saw a similar increase of 9% in 2024, with the average price of a home there €389,742, while in Limerick city prices rose by 8.2%, with the average house price there €284,138.

Waterford city recorded a 6.3% increase last year, the same rate as Cork city, bringing the average price of a home there to €247,236.

In the rest of the country, the average house price was €284,163, representing an increase of 9.2%.

While 63,000 second-hand homes were listed for sale in 2023, there were just 51,000 put on the market during 2024, similar to levels seen during the covid-19 pandemic.

The number of second-hand homes available to buy nationwide at the beginning of December was below 10,500, down 15% year-on-year, marking the lowest total ever recorded in a series of surveys which began in January, 2007.