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Meath · report

Buy or rent in Meath

Renting the average home costs less each month than owning 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
€1,542
Owning per month
€1,683

Try your own numbers

Starting from the average sale price of €437,639 and the average rent of tenancies registered in 2025, €1,542 a month, in Meath, and a mortgage rate of 3.5%.

Assumptions
3.5
1
Local property tax, insurance, maintenance and any management company fee.
3
What the deposit and purchase costs could earn if invested instead.
7
Stamp duty (1% of the price up to €1 million), solicitor, survey and valuation fees, paid once.

Renting costs less each month than owning.

Rent a month
€1,542
Owning a month, not recovered
€1,699
Interest
€1,149
Running costs
€365
Return given up
€186
Cash out a month, if buying
€2,133

Gross rental yield in Meath

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
PeriodMeath
20254.3%
20244.3%
20234.3%
20224.5%
20214.6%
20204.8%
20194.6%
20184.5%
20174.5%
20164.3%
20154.2%
20144.1%
20134.7%
20124.6%
20114.1%
20104.1%

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 Meath

At the average sale price, a home costs €437,639. With 10% down and a 30-year mortgage, the payment is €1,758 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
18%
Payment, one income
36%

3.8% more homes were granted planning permission in the last 12 months than in an average year of the past decade.

Permitted, 12 months
2,006
Per 1,000 residents
9.1

Sale prices have fallen by 3% or more 5 times since 2010. The deepest began in Q2 2010.

Deepest fall
−34.4%
Recovery from the low
51 months

6.0% of the 78,759 homes counted in the 2022 census were unoccupied: vacant, or holiday homes.

Empty, 2022 census
6.0%
Empty homes
4,747