Irish Property Glossary
Ireland's property market has its own vocabulary. Short, factual explainers for the terms iHouse uses across the site, with links to the upstream authorities (SEAI, Revenue, CSO, Pobal).
What is a BER rating?
BER stands for Building Energy Rating — Ireland's mandatory energy efficiency grade for every home offered for sale or rent. Issued by SEAI on a scale from A1 (best) to G (worst), it predicts how much it will cost to heat, light, and run hot water in a home.
What is the Property Price Register (PPR)?
The Property Price Register is the official ledger of every residential property sold in Ireland since 1 January 2010. It is maintained by the Revenue Commissioners from stamp-duty returns filed by buyers' solicitors, and is the authoritative source for actual transacted prices (not asking prices) on Irish residential real estate.
Eircode — Ireland's postcode system
Eircode is the Republic of Ireland's national postcode system, launched in 2015. Every individual delivery address — every front door — has a unique 7-character Eircode. Unlike most postcode systems, Eircode does not group nearby buildings: two adjacent houses have different Eircodes.
Small Area (CSO) — Ireland's neighbourhood-level census unit
A Small Area is the finest standard geography used by Ireland's Central Statistics Office (CSO) for census reporting. There are 18,919 Small Areas covering the Republic, each containing roughly 80–120 households (around 300 people). iHouse uses Small Areas to attach demographic, income, and household-structure context to every property.
Rental yield — gross vs. net, and how iHouse calculates it
Rental yield is the annual rental income of a property expressed as a percentage of its capital value. For investors and buy-to-let analysts, it is the headline return metric — though it tells only half the story because it excludes financing costs, taxes, and vacancy.