DUBLIN: Ireland’s 2008 property crash was more severe and its recovery more rapid that originally thought, the central statistics office (CSO) said on Wednesday, publishing more comprehensive data that showed price growth picking up pace in July.

The peak-to-trough fall in prices since the spectacular bursting of a property bubble 2007 was thought to have been 50.9 percent but that was revised up to 54.4 percent with the inclusion of cash purchases for the first time in the index.

Cash buyers such as older homeowners downsizing or private investors striking when prices hit bottom accounted for around half of all residential property transactions between 2011 and the most recent data in 2015, peaking at 56 percent in 2013.

The new data set, based on tax returns on property purchases rather than just mortgage drawdown data, indicates that the certainty cash buyers offer meant they generally paid less for a home than mortgage buyers, the CSO said.

The faster-than estimated recovery that began in Dublin in 2012 and the rest of the country a year later meant that prices across Ireland are on average 34.7 percent below their peak, versus an estimate of 33.3 percent before the revisions.

The recovery, which has become more moderate since a sharp rebound in 2014, accelerated in July with purchases outside Dublin fuelling national month-on-month growth of 2.5 percent to leave prices standing 6.7 percent higher than a year ago.

Property prices in Dublin increased by 1.6 percent compared to June and were up 3.8 percent year-on-year.

While the data demonstrated some signs of a more normalised market with mortgage-funded purchases increasing to 55 percent of all sales by 2015, it also showed that first-time buyers are forming a decreasing proportion of the market.

By July, first-time buyers’ share of the market dropped to just 24.6 percent from 53.1 percent in 2010 with most of the dip coming before the introduction of new central bank rules last year requiring prospective buyers to pay much larger deposits.

The government has said it will introduce incentives in next month’s budget to assist first-time buyers, many of whom are struggling to save up for the higher deposits as rents rise rapidly. Unlike house prices, rents are back above their peak a decade ago in Dublin, amid a chronic shortage of housing supply.—Reuters