Up to 40 per cent of the homes listed for sale on Irish property websites are already at sale agreed, making the problems faced by would-be homebuyers even more difficult than they realise, according to a new analysis of the market.
Recent data from daft.ie suggested that there were 11,900 second-hand properties for sale on the platform at the start of last month, 12 per cent fewer than a year earlier, and a record low.
Yet the picture may be even bleaker than the top line numbers suggest, according to property-buying consultant Roisin Cahill.
Ms Cahill tracked properties for sale in the first five months of the year and at certain times more than two-fifths of the homes in the Dublin and Dublin commuter belt area advertised for sale were already sale agreed and so essentially off the market.
She said the high level of properties which were already sale agreed while still being listed as being on the market pointed to a “concerningly competitive market that puts prospective buyers at a disadvantage before they even attend an initial house viewing”.
The property market has heated up considerably in recent months. In the third quarter of the year house prices climbed by 3 per cent to an average of almost €345,000 with house price inflation between June and September said to be the fastest of any three months since 2017.
House values are now 37 per cent higher than in early 2020.
[ House prices are now 37% higher than at start of Covid pandemic in 2020Opens in new window ]
Ms Cahill, the managing director of Emerald Sage Property Buying Consultants, looked at 131 properties in the Dublin and Dublin commuter belt area advertised as being for sale in the first months of the year but when she made contact with estate agents, 53 were already under sale agreements.
She suggested the main reasons properties were not described as being sale agreed was to maintain interest in them in case sales fell through, as well as delays for agents updating online listings.
She said it was more common for houses in the Dublin area to remain listed as being for sale.d.
“What it means is that homebuyers have to make multiple calls and a large percentage of their inquiries end up going nowhere as the homes are already off the market and might have been for several weeks,” she said. “The people I speak to are just getting so tired of it.”
She expressed the view that once properties go sale agreed, it should be highlighted as part of the listing. “Some of the bigger agencies do that but it is not widespread and it leads to a lack of transparency.”
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