Coming to Kilkenny: why more people are moving from Dublin to buy homes here
KILKENNY’S location – just over an hour’s drive from the capital – and more flexible working arrangements have helped to significantly increase the sales of local homes in the first half of the year.
Property sales in Kilkenny rose by over 20% in the first six months of the year, according to a new survey published by the MyHome.ie website.
The average value of homes throughout the city and county also rose by 23.5% in the same period.
Overall, Kilkenny and the commuter counties outside of Dublin experienced the highest rise in property sales as more people chose to quit the capital in search of more affordable homes and more family-friendly lifestyles.
Commenting on the report’s findings, leading Kilkenny independent auctioneer Warren McCreery (pictured below) told KilkennyNow.ie: “Affordability issues in the larger cities of Dublin, Cork and Galway, combined with the Central Bank’s rules, have pushed buyers to seek more affordable options in commuters locations with good road networks.
“Many companies now have flexi-work arrangements with their employees which has led to purchasers seeking more affordable property outside of Dublin. Kilkenny city is an obvious choice and is within commuters’ distance thanks to the M9.”
The latest MyHome.ie report showed there was a strong pick-up in house sales in most parts of the commuter belt in the first half of the year even as the market slowed down in the capital.
It found the volume of house sales nationally rose by 1.2 per cent to 25,192 over the six months, although the value of those transactions was down on the same period last year by 0.6 per cent at €7.2 billion.
However, the the figures also showed some stark regional disparities.
The 8,051 volume of sales in Dublin was down 2.9%, and the value of €3.57 billion was down 6.8%.
But in Louth the volume of sales rose 22.6% and the value was up by 28.6% to almost €168 million.
Wexford volumes rose 14.5% and the total value of those transactions was up 21.7%. Kildare was up 14.3% in volume, and 15.2% in value. Stretching further into Leinster, Kilkenny sales volumes rose 20.4 per cent and aggregate values by 23.%.
Overall 13 counties reported an increase in sales volume, and the same number experiencing drops. In terms of the value of property that sold, just six counties reported a fall compared with the first half of 2018.
