Irish House Prices: Asking prices for residential property around the country fell by 4.2% during the second quarter of 2010, according to the latest report published by property website Daft.ie. The national average asking price for property has fallen 37% since the peak and now stands at €220,000. The average time to sell a property is eight months, down from 10 months at the start of the year. Outside Dublin, unsold stock remains high.

In Dublin prices fell by 5% in the past 3 months and are now 40% lower than prices seen during the peak. Elsewhere in the country, prices are 34% below the peak on average. In Cork and Limerick prices fell by 3% and 2% respectively during the last three months, while prices in Waterford fell by 7%. The largest falls in the country were in Donegal, Cavan and Monaghan, where asking prices fell by an average of 11%, having been static for the past six months.

Ronan Lyons, economist with Daft.ie said: "While falls in asking prices are slower than last year, the market is still in adjustment and the total stock for sale, particularly outside the main cities, remains high. Nonetheless, evidence from Dublin in particular shows that properties are selling. Almost half the number of properties listed in the capital in January are now sale agreed or sold."

He continued, "Around the country, about 5,000 properties were listed for sale in April. Of these, 15% of properties have already been sold, while a further 10% are sale agreed. This represents a slight slowing down, compared with the first quarter, when 20% of properties listed in January were sold by April 1, with a further 10% sale agreed."

Jim Power, an economist at Friends First and lecturer in the Smurfit Graduate School of Business commented on the economic outlook: "There is generally a time lag of up to a year between the bottoming out of the economy and an upturn in the labour market, so there is hope unemployment will have bottomed out by the end of the year. However, strong growth in employment thereafter is a different matter entirely. It is very hard to identify too many sectors that might be net job creators over the next two or three years, and in fact it is not difficult to identify those sectors that could well shed further jobs."

He added: "The outlook over the next couple of years remains very challenging, not least because the external economic outlook remains very fragile. A recovery in domestic demand is required, but this is likely to be slow to materialise, so it is essential that policy makers remain focused on what I would regard as three key priorities - getting credit flowing in the economy, improving competitiveness a lot further, and addressing the structural imbalances in the public finances."

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