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What we can expect from the Land Development Agency 

Unresolved contradictions Not too many people would trade places with our beleaguered Minister for Housing this week, we suspect. He and staff of his department are fighting storms, both real and metaphorical, on all fronts. His most recent announcement, the Land Development Agency was marred by lack of detail and pushed-out target delivery dates. Conor Skehan,…

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Cost of Construction Continues to Rise

Earlier this week, you might have seen that quantity surveyors and industry consultants Linesight published its latest annual report on construction costs for the Republic of Ireland. According to the figures released, the cost of building a family home has risen 7.5% to as much as €161,000 over the past twelve months. This report effectively…

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The Big Picture

The housing and overall construction industry reports published over the past month have not been broadly positive so we thought this might be a good week to step back from the industry statistics and take a look at some of the wider factors influencing the economy. Firstly, let’s address some of the points made by…

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Bringing city spaces back into residential use

As mentioned last week, the Living City Initiative (LCI) is a tax incentive scheme for Special Regeneration Areas (SRAs) in Cork, Dublin, Galway, Kilkenny, Limerick and Waterford. It was announced by the Minister of Finance in May 2015 and applies to the selected SRAs above. Basically, it means you can claim tax relief for money…

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Re-Building Ireland gets back to re-building

Last week we talked about the draft national guidelines on urban development and building heights issued recently by the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government, which propose getting rid of maximum height restrictions in the city centre and imposing minimum height restrictions in urban and suburban areas. As mentioned, these guidelines are in draft…

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Opportunities in Dublin’s Waning Market

Last week we talked about the housing market in numbers. Headline figures included a 55% year-on-year increase in construction activity, an expected 20% increase in mortgage activity by the end of the year and 12.4% house price increases from May 2017 to May 2018. These figures came from the CSO Residential Property Price Index, which…

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The Housing Week in Numbers

Construction Activity It has been a somewhat confusing week of news releases from Ireland’s beleaguered housing market. Firstly, residential construction levels have increased 55% when compared with the same month last year. The last twelve months have seen a marked jump in construction activity across most urban areas, with some 9,250 buildings currently under construction.…

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The final days of the long-term commercial lease

How office landlords can compete for small business tenants You might recall several weeks ago that we talked about the shift in office lettings – in Ireland and globally – towards a more flexible offering typically seen in co-working arrangements. Some of the challenges for landlords in adapting to meet this shift directly rather than…

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Ireland’s Latest Housing Tool and Why it Matters

You might have read over the past few days about the high-profile launch of the ‘Dublin Housing Observatory Mapping Viewer‘, that catchy title just rolls off the tongue! So what exactly is it? This new mapping tool will provide insights in the breakdown of housing in Dublin. It provides detailed information on every aspect of…

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CIF Report

The CIF became the third organisation in as many weeks to release performance figures for the top building and specialist contractors in Ireland for 2017. Turnover amongst these 50 contractors alone rose to €6.72 billion over the last 12 months. These positive industry news blasts are punctuating what has been a concerning few months in…

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