There has been a spike in new home searches on the housing website Daft.ie.

It follows the announcement by the Government of the new first-time buyers’ help-to-buy scheme.

Website spokesperson Martin Clancy said that interest in new homes was greatest in the Dublin area and Dublin commuter counties, followed by Cork, Galway, Limerick and Waterford.

“We’re after seeing a huge spike in searches for new homes on Daft.ie since the Government made the announcement about the help-to-buy scheme for first-time buyers,” he said.

“The spike’s particularly interesting, because searches have increased by 130% on Tuesday, compared to the average daily search rate for 2016.”