Background: The Irish residential property market has gone from a period of spectacular growth, to a dramatic crash and lately to recovery in the past ten and half years (2005 – 2015) the period I will concentrate on in this article.
The economic factors which influenced these major upheavals are many and varied such as Interest Rates, Unemployment, Population Growth, Demographics, Wage Inflation, Exchange Rates vs Sterling & the US Dollar, Budget Measures, Central Bank borrowing limits, Credit Availability, Rents, Sentiment & Stock Market performance.
This is not an exhaustive list but it does show the range of factors that can influence property price movements with some having a much more dramatic effect than others. Here I will confine my analysis to the influence four key factors played on residential property prices in Ireland during the period discussed.
These are Unemployment, Migration, Exchange Rates & Sentiment. Firstly I will look at the property prices themselves and how they have behaved during the period.
Property Prices:
In the early part of the period under review (2005 to 2007) property prices increased …