What does a family home cost in the south-east?
Not some national average, but current medians for the towns that really interest families. So you can see where your budget actually stretches.
House prices are where writing about emigration fibs more than on any other subject: a single bargain as proof, a county average that counts towns nobody moves to, a figure with no date. We do it differently. Every figure below is an official 12-month median from Ireland’s statistics office, the CSO, by town, with its date. Median means: half of all sales came in below it. That is no advertising figure, but the middle of the real market.
The four towns that carry the argument
Let us start with the towns that carry the region’s price argument: the towns of the coastal arc between Wexford and Waterford.
| Town | Median | existing homes only | Sales in 12 months |
|---|---|---|---|
| New Ross | €230,000 | €230,000 | 187 |
| Enniscorthy | €300,000 | €265,000 | 449 |
| Wexford | €320,000 | €285,000 | 715 |
| Waterford | €327,232 | €262,500 | 1,228 |
| Ireland as a whole | €396,000 | €364,000 | |
| Dublin | €500,000 | €494,500 |
The sales column shows how solid the median beside it is: all four towns rest on enough sales for an anchor figure.
Source: CSO, tables HPM08 and HPM04, rolling 12-month median. As of: June 2026, retrieved 22 and 23 August 2026, confirmed 26 August 2026.
Read the table once from the bottom up: the national median stands at €396,000, Dublin at €500,000. And then New Ross at €230,000, not even half the Dublin figure. Even Waterford, the largest city in the region, sits with its existing-home median of €262,500 far below anything traded in Dublin. That is the heart of the reversal behind our property section: renting is hard across the whole country, but buying here is affordable.
The whole region in one table
| Town | Median | existing only | Sales | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| New Ross | €230,000 | €230,000 | 187 | |
| Enniscorthy | €300,000 | €265,000 | 449 | |
| Kilmacthomas | €300,000 | €262,000 | 46 | few sales, no anchor figure |
| Dungarvan | €318,500 | €317,250 | 159 | |
| Wexford | €320,000 | €285,000 | 715 | |
| Waterford | €327,232 | €262,500 | 1,228 | |
| Gorey | €350,034 | €313,500 | 517 | Dublin commuter fringe |
| Youghal | €294,500 | €285,000 | 149 | |
| Mallow | €275,000 | €260,000 | 495 | |
| Cobh | €335,000 | €330,000 | 132 | |
| Fermoy | €385,000 | €266,250 | 226 | |
| Cork northside | €380,000 | €301,000 | 783 | |
| Cork southside | €417,000 | €400,000 | 1,493 | above the national median |
| Glanmire | €399,999 | €382,000 | 264 | above the national median |
| Midleton | €420,000 | €348,000 | 576 | above the national median |
| Carrigaline | €420,000 | €414,500 | 295 | above the national median |
| Kinsale | €490,000 | €502,500 | 157 | above the national median |
Kilmacthomas rests on so few sales that its median is only a snapshot. Gorey is the northern edge of the region and carries a Dublin commuter premium; it remains a good place, but it is no price reference.
Source: CSO, tables HPM08 and HPM04, rolling 12-month median. As of: June 2026, retrieved 22 and 23 August 2026, confirmed 26 August 2026.
Two patterns are worth a second look. First, the gap between the median and the existing-home median: where it is large, as in Waterford or Fermoy, new builds pull the overall figure up, and anyone buying an existing house buys noticeably cheaper than the median suggests. Second, the north-south slope along the arc: the further from Dublin, the more house your money buys.
The expensive corner: Cork Harbour and Kinsale
Now the honest half, because since the region reaches as far as Kinsale it belongs here: around Cork Harbour and in Kinsale, prices sit at or above the national median. Cork southside (€417,000), Glanmire (€399,999), Midleton (€420,000), Carrigaline (€420,000), Kinsale (€490,000), all in the commuter belt of the country’s second city. Anyone who wants to buy there is buying city prices with city bidding wars, and we will not dress that up.
In the Cork part of the region the price argument is carried instead by the east coast and the Blackwater valley: Youghal €294,500, Cobh €335,000, Mallow €275,000, Fermoy €385,000 (Fermoy €266,250 for existing homes). These are the towns where being close to Cork Airport stays affordable.
If you want to know why the region still runs as far as Kinsale and how its geography fits together, read our page on the south-east.
How to read the figures
Three reading aids, so that these figures do not mislead you, in either direction.
First: a median is not an asking price. It describes what was actually paid, over twelve months. Individual houses sit above and below it, and a particularly lovely house in a sought-after spot costs more than the median even in New Ross.
Second: we set no British figure beside these medians as if it measured the same thing. The Office for National Statistics puts the average house price in England at £294,000 (August 2026). That is one average for a whole country, not a 12-month median for a single town of the kind Ireland’s statistics office keeps, and placing it next to New Ross would flatter Ireland with a comparison that does not hold. The comparison that does hold is in the first table: Dublin.
Third: the figures age. These are the rolling 12-month medians to June 2026; the source line under every table names the survey and the date. What the purchase costs beyond the price is under buying costs, and how it works under buying.
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