More people are buying homes in rural areas in Ireland, driving ‘strong and robust’ price growth in those regions, while prices in urban areas of the country are in decline, according to a new report on housing.

Irish property tech firm Geowox has published its latest quarterly housing market report, which includes analysis of each single entry in the Irish property price register. The report focuses on actual sales rather than asking prices.

It suggests homebuyers are increasingly looking to more rural areas to buy, after sales in those places experienced an increase of 4.6% compared to the same period a year ago.

The report also found rural homes experienced ‘strong and robust’ price growth year-on-year in the third quarter, with an increase of 11.1%. In contrast, urban prices declined by 0.7%.

However, even with prices in rural and urban areas on different trajectories, the cost of buying in urban areas is still significantly greater.

The median price of a home in Dublin stood at €425,000, making it 55.1% more expensive than other counties in Ireland, where the median price of a home was €274,000.

Roscommon saw the steepest increase in prices at 17.2%. In comparison, Dublin showed a decrease in prices of 3%.