Average cost of Laois family house surges towards €300,000
Revamped Daft.ie report reveals end of year cost of buying homes in Laois
The average cost of buying a family home in Laois has risen by around three times faster than the national average according to an end of year analysis by Daft.ie which shows that such homes look likely to hit the €300,000 threshold in 2026.
The findings are contained in the newly revamped Daft.ie House Price Report for the final quarter of 2025.
The survey provided to the Leinster Express / Laois Live shows that in Laois, the average price of a three-bedroom semi-detached house in Portlaoise, Portarlington and Mountmellick and other parts of Laois in the final three months of 2025 was €296,000. That's up 15% on the same time last year.
The property website report also shows that the average list price nationally rose by an average of 5.5% during 2025. Nationally, the average price of a three-bed semi-detached home in the final quarter of the year was just over €423,000. Listed prices are now, on average, 41% above their pre-COVID levels and just 10% below their Celtic Tiger peak.
In Leinster (outside Dublin), list prices rose by an average of 7.3% during 2025, slightly above the 6.9% increase seen during 2024.
A snapshot of the average list price and year-on-year change in Laois shows the following:
- Semi-detached 3-bed: Up 15.0% to €286,000
- Semi-detached 4-bed: Up 8.4% to €355,000
- Detached 2-bed: Up 15% to €210,000
- Detached 3-bed: Up 13.3% to €322,000
- Detached 4-bed: Up 6.2% to €425,000
- Detached 5-bed: Up 15.1% to €574,000
- Terraced 2-bed: Up 0.7% to €196,000
- Terraced 3-bed: Up 19.9% to €271,000
- Apartment 2-bed: Up 5.9% to €188,000
The daft.ie also says the typical gap between the initial listed price and the ultimate transaction price has grown sharply since 2003 and, in late 2025, was 6.6% nationally.
The report finds that as has consistently been the case for over a decade, the increases in prices around the country stem from a lack of supply.
It says that on December 1st, there were just 11,551 second-hand homes for sale nationwide. While this is up 7% on the same date a year previously, availability is less than half the 2015-2019 average of 26,000. Shortages in availability are much more acute outside Dublin.
The Daft.ie website shows that there were 173 homes for sale in Laois on December 30, 2025. The least expensive urban home was Maryville on Main St in Borris-in-Ossory. On the market for €100,000, the estate agents say it is ready for "complete renovation and transformation".
At the other end of the market is Cappakeel House, Emo. The four-bed two-bed detached house is listed for sale at €1,200,000
The report's author is Ronan Lyons, a Professor in Economics at Trinity College Dublin. He commented on the national situation
“Across both list and transaction prices, it is clear that demand continues to significantly outpace supply in the sales market. An optimist will point to the slight slowdown in inflation, with the 5.5% increase in list prices below the 6.8% seen in 2024 – and to the modest increase in availability of second-hand homes.
"However, this marks the twelfth year in a row of increasing prices. And, since the pandemic, the availability of homes to buy has become stuck at a much lower level than before, putting greater pressure on buyers. The solution remains unchanged. A country that is building between 30,000 and 35,000 homes needs to double that total – across owner-occupied, social and rental segments – so that the housing reflects society, rather than society having to fit the housing stock,” he said.
Daft.ie says the latest report is entirely revamped with more data available for journalists and market analysts. It says the report is structured to give a consistent national and regional series of a range of key metrics.