New figures show that house prices fell by 2.6% in the first six months of this year. It is the first time there has been such a decline in half-yearly figures since 2001.
The house price index compiled by Permanent TSB and the ESRI shows that the average price paid for a house in June was €302,605, a drop of just over €8,000 since the start of the year.
House prices in June fell by 0.5% compared with May, bringing the annual rate of growth for the past 12 months to just 0.9%.
A breakdown showed that house prices in Dublin fell by 1.3% in June, with a drop of 0.9% elsewhere. For first-time and second-time buyers, there were falls of 0.9% and 0.5% respectively.
New house prices were down 0.7% in the month, existing houses by 0.3%. House prices in the commuter counties around Dublin dropped by 0.7% in June after a rise in May and are now down 3.9% in the first six months.
Meanwhile, figures from the Central Statistics Office showed that construction employment in June fell by 1.1% compared with the same month last year. This was the third annual drop in a row in the employment index, which covers private construction firms employing five or more people.
