First-time buyers struggle to get a mortgage with anything less than a 10pc deposit (and rightly so, for reasons of financial stability). But when surveyed, they revealed they expected annual house price increases over the next five years of the order of about 3pc a year, which looks far from excessive. But the underlying reason for house price rises is more obvious. The population of Dublin is growing by roughly 17,000 people a year, which translates into roughly 7,500 units a year. But over the entire three years from January 2011 to December 2013, just 4,000 new dwellings were built in the capital, about one sixth of what Dublin needed.