It’s a tough time to be a house hunter.

The latest Daft.ie House Price Report, published today, shows that house prices rose by 9% in the third quarter of 2020, bringing the average price of a home in Cork City to €290,653 and €229,142 in the rest of the county.

Across Munster, listed prices rose by an average of 6.1% between June and September, the largest three-month gain since early 2015. Prices in Munster’s three cities rose by almost 10% in three months – twice the increase seen in the rest of the province.

Meanwhile, supply has dropped considerably; there were just over 5,200 properties on the market in Munster on October 1st, a decrease of almost 8,000 on the same date a year ago.

“Across both sale and rental markets, setting aside supply, the single best predictor of changes in housing prices is the unemployment rate. Where it rises – and thus when household income and net migration fall – the price of housing falls,” said Ronan Lyons, Assistant Professor in Economics, Trinity College Dublin.

“But not this time. The figures from this latest Daft.ie Report, covering the sales market, show a notable bounce in the listed price of housing across Ireland in the third quarter of the year. Prices had fallen by an average of almost 2% nationwide in the second quarter of the year. Coupled with falls in the second half of 2019, as supply improved, this meant that prices were almost 4% lower, year-on-year – the largest annual fall in sale prices since early 2013.”

In the third quarter of the year, however, prices nationally rose by an average of 4.8% in just three months.

“This is the largest quarterly increase in average prices since the start of 2015 and the fourth largest three-quarter jump overall, in a series extending back to the start of 2006.” Mr Lyons added.