The 2017 New Homes Market in Numbers
“Playing our part for the Dublin housing market, Victoria Homes has delivered close to 200 new homes in the capital since 2012 and we are on track to provide a further 1,000 to 1,200 new homes by 2022.”
As 2017 is coming to a close, now is a good time to look back on how the new homes market has performed to date. Dublin continues to be a bustling hive for property but very few areas around the capital are seeing natural demand levels met. While there are many reasons for this – from high development land and construction costs, or inaccessible and expensive financing rates, right through to planning delays and an overly-burdensome system – the reality is that all these factors play a part in slowing down the delivery of much-needed new homes across the country. What we can plainly see is that of the new homes currently being delivered, the majority tends to be on the outskirts of Dublin, moving out to the commuter towns that have languished in the recent decade. This is arguably good news for our negative equity generation but less so for the next generation of aspiring city dwellers.
The capital has seen an almost 12% property price rise in the last year, with strong inflation being highlighted throughout the media. The property market could well be heading for some stability and levelling off. The supply levels of new homes certainly made a recovery throughout the year and while official data is not available yet, it is estimated that around 8,000 new homes were sold this year, which is 1,000 more than 2016. Sales of new homes continue to be strong, particularly in the Greater Dublin area, taking in parts of North Kildare. This is encouraging news for buyers and builders alike as it proves that the market is starting to deliver what people need, where they need it – this has not always been the case. Although it often gets lost in the numbers debate, the aim of ‘recovery’ at this stage must be to provide quality, affordable homes to a new generation of potential home owners.
According to figures recently released from the Central Statistics Office (CSO), since the beginning of 2015, just over 15,000 new homes have been sold despite the Department of Housing new home completion figures suggesting it is much higher. Playing our part for the Dublin housing market, Victoria Homes has delivered close to 200 new homes in the capital since 2012 and we are on track to deliver a further 1,000 to 1,200 new homes by 2022.
The lack of supply continues to a driving force in the rise of property prices and it is understandably limiting people’s ability to purchase new homes in their ideal location. Chronic shortages are a problem and it will continue to be until more new homes are built in high demand areas. The housing crisis still exists in Ireland, however, it is a very different one to what we were facing five years ago, or ten. The main problem today is speed of delivery; buyer demand remains consistently strong and the majority of buyers are finance-ready but the industry is rebuilding itself while trying to rebuild the country. On a positive note, construction trends are moving in the right direction and Ireland’s building activity is ramping up for a number of years of successive growth.
The Help-to-Buy scheme was paramount to the success of new homes in 2017 and it will continue to prove helpful with first-time buyers expected to dominate the new homes market throughout 2018. While this particular scheme came under criticism from some quarters last year, as a supply-side initiative to facilitate home builders to build more starter homes, we can see that it is having the desired effect with more new developments aimed at first-time buyers coming to the market, albeit from a very low base. It certainly assists first-time buyers in gathering their deposit (5 per cent of the price of a new home to a maximum of €20,000),more importantly, it allows development funders to gauge buyer capacity in popular areas, which is the key to delivering new homes. The flow of new homes to the market is expected to improve further next year and, as first-time buyers compromise commuting times for more affordable homes, we will likely see a push outside the greater Dublin area for the first time in almost a decade.
All in all, housing progress was made in 2017 and 2018 should prove to be an interesting year with new homes expected to represent an even larger portion of overall property sales figures.
To discuss this and other housing matters in Dublin, please contact me directly on +353 (0) 87 937 0896, Derek@VictoriaHomes.ie or check out all of our current developments at www.victoriahomes.ie/
- Posted by Vhomesirl
- On January 2, 2018
- 0 Comment