Want a home in Ireland? You need to wait until you're 40 and earn over €84,000 a year

The median age to buy a home in Ireland now stands at 40 and the average median income of those looking to buy a property is €84,400, according to a report published on Thursday by the Central Statistics Office.

These bleak findings in the CSO's Characteristics of Residential Property Purchasers 2022-2024 report clearly show the housing crisis is continuing to impact people across the entire country, with the price of houses increasing year on year. 

Commenting on the release of the report, Kayla Farrell, Statistician in the Housing Division of the CSO, said: "Today’s Frontier Release provides information about the characteristics of people who purchased residential property in Ireland between 2022 and 2024. Price paid, age, income, employment status, nature of occupancy, household composition, occupation, and citizenship are explored. Using Census 2022 data also provides additional insight into the people who bought a home in 2022."

The report states that the average median purchase price for a home in Ireland increased from €327,000 in 2023 to €355,000 in 2024.

Although everyone is feeling the effects of the crisis, some areas are dramatically more expensive than others. For example, the local authority of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown had the highest median home purchase price last year with a value of €660,000. In comparison, Longford was the county with the lowest median price at €182,200.

When you take Local Electoral Areas (LEAs) into account, last year Pembroke in Dublin City had the highest median price of €820,000. Whereas the lowest median price among LEAs was in Carndonagh, Donegal at €147,500.

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Of course, these costs are having a major impact on the demographic of those purchasing homes. In 2024 the national median income of residential property purchasers was €84,400, up from €80,100 in 2023, and €75,600 in 2022. 

The median age nationally for purchasers in 2024 was 40, which was unchanged since 2021. When you consider sole purchasers, the median age was 42 and for joint purchasers it was 38. 

According to the report, only a third of people bought a home last year aged 35 or under. The report included the point that when the last Census was conducted in 2022, 8% of people who bought a home had been living with their parents.

The median income for purchasers aged under 35 in 2024 was €86,400. The national median income of joint purchasers last year was €101,200.

There was also a notable decrease in the amount of homes bought last year. Nationally, 48,780 homes were purchased and this fell from 50,230 just two years previous.

When it comes to the citizenship of those buying homes in Ireland, 76% of residential property purchasers were Irish, 2% were from the UK, 11% had citizenship elsewhere in the EU, and 7% had citizenship in an Asian country.