Local property prices are through the roof

The North’s housing market is the healthiest it has been in almost twenty years, according to a recent report. 

Both house prices and sales are on the rise, with the average house now going for £195,242 – that’s an increase of 9.2% between the second quarter of 2020 and the same term this year.

In Fermanagh and Omagh, the recent rise in house prices has been significantly higher than the North’s average. 

Between the first and second quarter of 2021, across the whole of the North, there was an average increase of 2.9% in housing prices.

In Femanagh and Omagh district, in the same period, there was a 9.3%  – in pounds and pennies, the average house price went from £163,825 to £179,046.

The Causeway Coast and Glens is the most expensive district to purchase a house currently, with the average property costing £211,861. 

In terms of increased value by percentage, it was Mid-Ulster – the district stretching from Cookstown and Dungannon, to Maghera and Magherafelt – which seen the largest jump with prices up 15% between the first and second quarter of this year, leaving the average house now costing 198,378.

One of the districts which haven’t been part of this property trend between the first and second quarter of 2021 is Strabane and Derry, which experienced a 2.2% drop in housing prices – an average house there would cost a buyer £123.525.

Experts have attributed province-wide rocketing of property prices and increased purchasing to the psychological and practical impacts of the pandemic.

Mr Michael McCord, reader in real estate at Ulster University said “the effect of the Covid-19 pandemic upon the housing market is well and truly discernable, with the race for space clearly evident.”

It also been suggested that we are witnessing the release of a pent-up housing demand that was every-growing during lockdowns when the housing market was effectively closed.

Thus it is expected that the sharp rise in activity we saw at the beginning the year to level out to some degree.