'Pent up demand to buy and rent properties' is driving up the prices in Leitrim by 13%

Mr McGill continued that "there was a high volume of people from all walks of life; they are coming from Dublin. You have the eight trains a day now from Carrick-on-Shannon to Dublin, the first one in at 7.45am to Connolly Station and the last one at 7.30pm. It has huge advantages regarding transportation. When that section of the N4 is completed outside Mullingar, that will also improve things. The main thing is that Carrick-on-Shannon is a lovely place to live; it has everything going for it and is a marvellous town."

He stressed: "Everything is selling and there is a pent up demand out there for good stock."

He added that there simply isn't enough houses for the demand out there: "Anything you take on, it's sold. There is such a huge demand. If you got twenty houses to sell tomorrow, you will sell them. "

READ MORE: Leitrim had second highest property price increase across the country - report

He stated that houses prices are taking off due to other factors. "If you are in an estate and you see a neighbour's house down the road getting €320,000 for their house, you want to sell yours for €350,000. It isn't auctioneers that are actually driving the price up; it's demand, huge demand."

Commenting on Rent Pressure Zones (RPZs), Mr McGill said: "That has created problems in the sense that if you are living in non-pressure zone and are renting a house to someone for €1000 for six months but the houses down the road are exactly the same house but they are fetching €2000. When the tenant leaves, you can't put up the rent to €2000; you can only put it up to whatever it was plus 2%. You can raise the rent until next March and the only way to get around that issue is to leave it vacant until March 2026 as it's not worth your while."