Ireland's residential property prices up 6.1% in 10 months

Ireland's residential property prices went up by 6.1 percent in the year to October, according to official figures on Wednesday. The country's Central Statistics Office (CSO) said residential property prices grew by 1.8 percent in the month of October from September. The CSO said property prices in Dublin rose by 15 percent last month compared to the same time last year, the biggest increase since 2006. Dublin house prices grew by 14.6 percent higher compared to a year earlier, while Dublin apartment prices were 18 percent higher when compared with the same month of 2012. The CSO also said the price of residential properties outside of Dublin rose by 1.5 percent in October from September, but were still 0.3 percent lower than the same time last year. Despite the recovery in recent months, residential property prices nationwide are still down 47 percent from their peak in 2007. Meanwhile, there was a 12.3 percent increase in the number of mortgages approved in October when compared to the previous month, according to the Irish Banking Federation. Almost 1,880 mortgages were approved last month, 92 percent of them for house purchases. This compares to 1,673 in September and 1,677 in October 2012, a 12 percent rise year-on-year.