House price growth has risen to a three year high with an 8.6% climb up to July, it has been revealed.

Prices in Dublin rose by 8.1% while prices outside it grew by 9.1%, new figures from the Central Statistics Office have shown.

In July 2021, 3,822 dwelling purchases by households at market prices were filed with Revenue, an increase of 49.2% compared to the same month last year.

The median price of a dwelling purchased in the 12 months to July 2021 was €267,000.

Viacheslav Voronovich, Statistician, said: “In the period before COVID-19, the annual growth in residential property prices fell gradually from 13.4% in April 2018 to 0.9% in March 2020. While price growth remained subdued throughout most of 2020, a trend of accelerating growth emerged in the latter part of the year and into 2021.

“Since the latter part of 2020, the number of dwellings purchased by households have returned to pre-Covid-19 levels.

“In the first seven months of 2021, there were 24,280 dwellings purchased by households at market prices. This compares to 24,416 for the first seven months of pre-pandemic 2019.”

Joey Sheahan, Head of Credit at MyMortgages.ie, added: “First Time Buyers make up a strong cohort of buyers as always, but we would expect that if the Help-to-Buy Scheme is extended in the upcoming budget, as expected, their share of the market will continue to grow.

“The percentage of new dwellings transacted over the period has also increased which hopefully is a sign of greater construction output in a market where the delivery new homes is absolutely crucial.”