The supply of homes for sale in the Dublin property market has collapsed by 54% in the last year, giving the Irish capital a serious housing problem, according to data released by Sherry FitzGerald.

The data also shows the housing supply crisis is fast spreading to other cities as it revealed that the supply of houses for sale in Galway city has also fallen by half, while the number of homes for sale in Cork city declined by 35% in the same period.

There are now fears in the market that such a fast drop in supply could lead to house prices rising twice as fast as last year, which would equate to a 30% rise in 2014.

The fall in supply has come from a low base level as it was estimated a year ago that the supply of homes for sale was running at just one third of the number of homes required to satisfy demand.

According to the report, just 3,025 properties were advertised for sale in Dublin, a city of 1.3m people. Normal supply levels are 4-6% of total stock and there are 500,000 households in the capital. This indicates that the numbers need to be at 20-30,000 to satisfy pent-up demand.