One direction. Northern Ireland’s house price recovery is six-years old. For twenty-three of the last twenty-five quarters residential property prices have gone one way – up! Despite this significant run of steady price rises, less than one-third of the 57% drop in prices that occurred between Q3 2007 and Q1 2013 has been recouped so far. As of Q2 2019, local house prices were still 39% below Q3 2007’s ‘freak peak’.
The latest Northern Ireland Composite Economic Index confirmed that the local economy notched up its sixth successive quarter of growth in Q1 2019. The 0.3% q/q rise marked an improvement on Q4 2018’s lacklustre growth rate of just 0.1%. While the rate of growth in the latest quarter was perhaps stronger than expected, it still represents a rather weak rate of expansion. Meanwhile the annual rate of growth slowed from 1.8% y/y in Q4 to 1.5% in Q1 2019.
