Conall MacCoille

I think it's probably putting people off from the market.

There's other difficulties as well.

I mean, I think when one in six, one in seven properties has been sold 20% over the original asking price, that's not a good place to be.

Any well-functioning market, as in the UK and the US, where the asking price is the asking price, that's where we want to be and hopefully we can get there.

I think there's a danger trying to be too clever about this entire process.

There's plenty of people who want to buy houses out there at the moment.

I think people should set the asking price as the asking price where they think it's going to sell.

But again, this is an issue which has gotten worse over the past couple of years.

I've seen the number of transactions in the existing homes market actually contract again.

this year.

So existing home movers are very reluctant to move.

It's an issue for downsizing, for example.

So again, Bank of Ireland recently launched a product around facilitating downsizing.

We have obviously a lack of housing.

There's a lot of empty bedrooms out there.

The idea that an elderly couple, for example, would have to sell their own home, rent for a while, buy another, that's clearly going to put them off.

So again,

Bank of Ireland has a solution for them.

But again, more broadly in the housing market, we'd like to see a bit more transparency.

And people have not put off by the fact that it's very hard for them to gauge where affordability truly is.