Home building up, vacancy rates down

But we need to talk about the rental market

Market update

In the same week that Dublin recorded the single biggest home sale of 2022 (exceeding €12 million), residential price increases were recorded in every county across Ireland. The average property price for the country, excluding the capital, is now €267,351. Dublin remains the county with the highest average property price of €514,796, while Longford is the county with the lowest, at €154,306.

46,328 homes were sold between May 2021 and May 2022, marking an annual increase in transaction activity of 13.5 percent, and 16.7 percent of these transactions involved newly-built homes.

New Homes

The latest figures from GeoDirectory show that 34,198 new residential addresses were recorded in the 12 months to June 2022. According to the GeoDirectory data, there are a further 22,390 residential buildings currently under construction. This marks an 18.4 percent year-on-year nationwide increase. 

17.4 percent of these new homes are located in Dublin, while 12 percent are in Cork. 

Kildare saw the most significant annual increase in home building activity, accounting for 14.2 percent of all new homes over the 12-month period. In fact, the total number of buildings under construction across County Kildare has increased by 74.4 percent this year.

Vacant Homes

The identification and use of vacant properties has been flagged as a huge problem in recent years, however, the figures suggest that the number of vacant residential properties fell by 5.9 percent over the reporting period, bringing the total number of homes classified as vacant to 86,708 nationally.

Looking around the country, Dublin has recorded the lowest vacancy rate at 1.5 percent of total housing stock, followed by Kildare at 1.6 percent. The highest vacancy rates continue to be recorded in the west and north-west of the country, with 12.8 percent of all housing in Leitrim showing as vacant. It is worth noting that the number of derelict addresses also recorded a decrease of 3.8 percent. 

Rental market

According to the most recently published RTB figures, Ireland’s rental crisis has worsened with costs for new tenancies increasing by 9.2 percent in Q1 2022. The national average rent in new tenancies is now €1,460, which is an increase of €46 on Q4 2021. Rents for new tenancies in Dublin are now €2,015 per month, while the same is now €1,453 in Cork city, €1,413 in Galway city, €1,273 in Limerick city and €1,054 in Waterford city.

Also, threshold has released some concerning statistics this week that show an increase in Dublin landlords being ordered to bring properties up to ‘minimum standards’ and almost two thirds of rent increase notices examined by that housing charity were found to be invalid. 

Perhaps the most worrying number is the 32 percent decrease in the number of registered tenancies used in the RTB reporting sample due to the continuing mass exodus of landlords from the market… which is a whole other conversation for another day.

Ian Lawlor
086 3625482

Managing Director 
Lotus Investment Group