Enniscorthy Property Market Update - House Stock Up!

Housing stock increase 19% since 2021!

For you would be buyers out there, there is some welcome news that housing stock has increased by 19% since July 2021 (daft.ie) in the Enniscorthy area and surround environs.

There is now a greater choice of properties to choose from than the past few years so what are the factors contributing to this? One of the reasons of course is that homeowners want to cash in on rising prices, tighter restrictions on tenancies has seen a large amount of landlords exiting the market while others are looking for more space due to the new trend of people ‘working from home’.

With the larger number of houses for sale, it has also seen prices stabilise somewhat in the town with the standard 3 bed semi between 195k to 210k which has remained the same since the start of the summer, with a prospective purchaser now having a better choice of where they would like to live in the town. As stated above, this is largely driven by those landlords exiting the rental market.

For those looking to buy a home outside of town, there is still strong demand for the 3 to 4 bed home on the half acre, with commuters coming further than Gorey now to get better value for money. With some of the nicer homes, we still see a large number of viewings and more often than not, a number of bidders, this should remain the same for the foreseeable future.

The new home market is still very strong with the first-time buyer more now than ever looking for the ‘A’ rated home. This it has to be said has primarily been driven by the government schemes, the ‘help to buy Scheme’, allowing for up to €30,000 off a new home and the new ‘Shared Equity Scheme’. For those unfamiliar with the scheme, there is a very handy guide here, easy to read and explains it well. For those looking for a new home, we have a new development in Greenhill, Clonhaston, the first new development on this side of town for a number of years, between the new motorway exit and the town itself. We are now into Phase 2 with this estate. We also have a new development in Castlebridge where there is only one home remaining. Hopefully the government will introduce the first time buyer scheme for second hand properties, as there are plenty of second hand homes out of FTB’s reach that are also a reasonable price which could easily be retrofitted for a energy sustainable home.

Regarding the rental market, a real lack of stock is keeping rents high, with your average 3 bed semi now achieving over €1,000, the same property last year would have been rented for €900. Daft in their latest report, stated something similar with rents 14.6% higher than this time last year in the Wexford area. With landlords exiting the market due to tighter restrictions, unfortunately for those of you that are renting, this probably isn’t going to change for the immediate future. While being a ‘landlord’ can be a bit of a taboo word sometimes, with more landlords equals more properties, more choice and lower rents so hopefully in the next budget there will be an incentive for more landlords to come into the market.

So just to summerise, while the market has somewhat stablised, a person looking to buy in town now has a greater choice than they have had in the last number of years but since its been driven largely by investors selling, its leaving less choice of rental property which will keep rents high for the foreseeable future. 

Managing Director

Declan O’Leary Sherry FitzGerald O’Leary Kinsella