Donegal · report
Buy or rent in Donegal
Owning the average home costs less each month than renting it. Owning counts interest, running costs and the return the deposit could earn, at the average sale price; rent is the average rent of the tenancies registered with the RTB in the year. Repaying the loan is saving, so it is left out.
- Rent per month
- €977
- Owning per month
- €907
Try your own numbers
Starting from the average sale price of €235,737 and the average rent of tenancies registered in 2025, €977 a month, in Donegal, and a mortgage rate of 3.5%.
Owning costs less each month than renting.
- Rent a month
- €977
- Owning a month, not recovered
- €915
- Interest
- €619
- Running costs
- €196
- Return given up
- €100
- Cash out a month, if buying
- €1,149
Gross rental yield in Donegal
A year's rent as a share of the average sale price, for each year the RTB published it. Higher means rent is dear compared with buying.
Show the numbers
| Period | Donegal |
|---|---|
| 2025 | 4.9% |
| 2024 | 4.8% |
| 2023 | 4.9% |
| 2022 | 4.1% |
| 2021 | 4.8% |
| 2020 | 4.5% |
| 2019 | 5.0% |
| 2018 | 5.4% |
| 2017 | 4.9% |
| 2016 | 5.4% |
| 2015 | 4.7% |
| 2014 | 5.0% |
| 2013 | 5.3% |
| 2012 | 4.6% |
| 2011 | 4.1% |
| 2010 | 3.8% |
The comparison counts only the costs of owning you never get back: interest, running costs and what the deposit and purchase costs could earn elsewhere. Loan repayments build equity, so they are left out. So is any rise in the home's value, because nobody knows it in advance. Rents here are the Residential Tenancies Board's average rent of the tenancies registered in the year, by county, with Cork and Galway cities apart; a council without a figure of its own takes its region's, and Dublin's councils take Dublin's.
Other reports for Donegal
At the average sale price, a home costs €235,737. With 10% down and a 30-year mortgage, the payment is €947 a month. Ireland sets no cap on the payment; the Central Bank limits most mortgages to four times gross income for first-time buyers and 3.5 times for others.
- Payment, two incomes
- 15%
- Payment, one income
- 29%
63.8% more homes were granted planning permission in the last 12 months than in an average year of the past decade.
- Permitted, 12 months
- 1,354
- Per 1,000 residents
- 8.1
Sale prices have fallen by 3% or more 4 times since 2010. The deepest began in Q1 2010.
- Deepest fall
- −49.7%
- Recovery from the low
- 96 months
25.7% of the 85,990 homes counted in the 2022 census were unoccupied: vacant, or holiday homes.
- Empty, 2022 census
- 25.7%
- Empty homes
- 22,100