Agency says Brexit refugees are seeking Irish homes on Rightmove

Sherry Fitzgerald, a major agency in the Republic of Ireland, says it has seen “exceptionally strong” interest in homes from British buyers since the EU referendum.

The agency’s economist, Marian Finnegan, has told website TheJournal that much of the interest has been registered through Rightmove. 

“We have a lot of people interested in buying property in Ireland at the minute, both residential and commercial, in Dublin and the main coastal towns and cities. It’s up around the 20,000 to 30,000 mark each weekend. We monitor it on the daily basis” she says.

Sherry Fitzgerald had 8,556 hits on Rightmove for their houses in the weekend before Brexit, but on the two post-Brexit weekends hits soared to between 20,000 and 25,000.

This is despite the sharp fall in Sterling triggered by the surprise UK vote to leave the EU.

In the same article Sigmar Recruitment, a jobs agency, says it has been “inundated” with applications and relocating queries from UK-based employees looking to move to Ireland.

“We’ve been inundated with people. There’s been an increase of 300 per cent in the last two weeks of enquiries from people, mainly in the financial services, technology and pharmaceutical industries. We’ve had 310 calls in the last week alone” says a spokesman.

Meanwhile real estate consultancy JLL says Ireland is expecting a “positive short-term bounce” in demand for high quality office space as a result of Brexit.