Residential Property Price Index April 2022

Volume and Value of Purchases and Sales

In 2021, the total of 58,152 dwelling purchases at market prices were filed with the Revenue Commissioners, with a value of €18.7 billion.  Of these, 11,733 purchases were made by non-household entities, an increase of 0.3% on the 11,701 purchases made by them in 2020. The total value of the purchases by non-household entities in 2021 was €3.5 billion, an increase of just 0.2% on the 2020 value.

In contrast, the non-household entities sold 17,252 dwellings at market prices in 2021, an increase of 2.2% on the 16,881 dwellings sold by them in 2020. The total value of sales by non-household entities in 2021 amounted to €5.8 billion, an increase of 4.5% on the 2020 value of €5.5 billion. See Figure 5.1.

Non-household entities belonging to NACE sector O,P,Q: Public/Education/Health purchased residential dwellings with a total value of €1,053.1 million in 2021, more than in any other NACE sector according to transactions filed with the Revenue Commissioners. Purchases of dwellings by entities in the NACE section K: Finance and Insurance (banks, trusts, funds, holding companies etc.) were the second largest, with a value of €846.1 million*. See Table 5.2A.

*It should be noted that the aggregate of NACE sections O, P, Q is a broad grouping. It includes transactions involving state or semi-state agencies, such as those made by local authorities and Approved Housing Bodies. However, it also covers all other transactions of residential properties made by public institutions, as well as purchases and sales made by private companies within the education and health sectors.

Non-household entities in the NACE section F: Construction were the most active vendors in 2021, selling residential properties with a value of €3.4 billion. Sales of dwellings by entities in the NACE section K: Financial and Insurance were the second largest, with a value of €1.3 billion. See Table 5.2B.

In 2021 Irish registered companies and institutions accounted for €2.9 billion (84%) of the €3.5 billion spent on dwellings by the non-household sector. Purchases by companies with a Northern Ireland address accounted for €12.2 million, €51.1 million was spent by the companies with a Great Britain address and €10.1 million by companies with a British Crown Dependency address. A total of €491.2 million was spent by companies with another address outside of Ireland. See Table 5.3A.

Companies and institutions with registered address outside of Ireland spent €564.6 million on purchases of residential dwellings, an increase of 24.6% on the €453.0 million spent in 2020. Of these, entities with addresses in Northern Ireland, Great Britain and British Crown dependencies accounted for 2.2%, 9.1% and 1.8% of the expenditure, respectively, while the bulk of purchases (87.0%) were made by the companies with addresses in other parts of the world. See Figure 5.3.

In 2021, Irish registered companies and institutions accounted for just under €5.7 billion (98.9%) of the value of all dwellings sold by the non-household sector. Europe (excluding Ireland, the United Kingdom and British Crown Dependencies) accounted for just €6.2 million (0.1%) and companies and institutions registered outside of Europe accounted for €10.4 million (0.2%) of sales. See Table 5.3B.

The Household and Non-Household sectors of the residential property market interact and overlap to a significant degree. Each dwelling transaction involves two parties, the buyer and the seller. A household may sell to another household or to the Non-Household Sector (represented by flows A and B respectively in figure 4 below). Conversely, a non-household company or institution may sell to the Household Sector or to another company or institution (flows C and D). Net inter-sectoral flows can be established to show the overall direction of the flow of dwellings (in volume or value terms). For example, the net value flow (C-B) represents the overall transfer of money from the Household to the Non-Household sector in the residential property market. See Figure 5.4.

Figure 5.4: Household and Non-Household residential property flows

In 2021 non-household entities sold dwellings valued at €3.5 billion to the households, whereas sales within its own sector amounted to just €2.3 billion. In contrast, households sold predominately to other households, with the intra-household market accounting for €11.7 billion of dwelling sales, and sales to the non-household sector accounting for just €1.2 billion. On balance, this represented a net monetary flow of €2.2 billion to the non-household sector. See Table 5.4.

In each year represented in the table a net flow of money was directed to the non-household sector, with the value of the flow being at its lowest in 2015 at just €1.2 billion.

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