Househunters will get more bang for their buck outside Westmeath

Househunters in Westmeath looking for the best bang for their buck should consider looking outside the county boundaries.

At €244,409, the average price of a house in Westmeath is now close to a quarter of a million euros, and prices are 13.3 per cent higher than a year ago.

Buyers in a position to live in Longford would be looking at an average asking price of €168,327 while in Roscommon, the average asking price is €171,621.

Even in Offaly the average asking price, at €225,152, is less than Westmeath.

The figures are contained in the Daft House Price Report Q4 2021 which states that at the start of the pandemic, it seemed as though the then gentle fall in prices would turn into a full-on crash, but prices had risen in both 2020 and 2021.

In fact, continues the report, 2021 ended “with year-on-year inflation in all but one of the 54 markets covered in the Daft Report – the exception being Dublin 6”.

The report adds that fewer than 11,500 homes were available to buy online on December 1, and in most parts of the country, the number of homes available to buy at the start of the month was at an all-time low.

In Westmeath, the most dramatic price hikes are affecting the three-bed semi-detached house sector, where asking prices have risen by 18.8 per cent. That takes the average price of a three-bed semi to €178,000.

Four-bed bungalows have an average asking price of €341,000, up 13.6 per cent; five-bed detached homes have an average asking price of €354,000, an increase of 6.2 percent.

Anyone in the market for a one-bed home might just manage to get one for under €100,000 as the asking price for one-bed apartments, despite an increase of 14.8 per cent in the year to December, averages €98,000.

In general in Leinster, there were just under 2,650 properties on the market (outside Dublin) on December 1, but that figure was down 28% from over 3,700 on the same date a year ago and represented a new low.