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Ireland Short of Homes as Population Spikes
Ireland is short of more than 100,000 homes as strong population growth has sparked a boom in demand. In a report, Sherry Fitzgerald Managing Director Marian Finnegan says the country has ‘consistently failed to meet the housing demand of its population’.
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Realty Plus
Published - Tuesday, 20 Jul, 2021
Ireland is short of more than 100,000 homes as strong population growth has sparked a boom in demand. In a report, Sherry Fitzgerald Managing Director Marian Finnegan says the country has ‘consistently failed to meet the housing demand of its population’.
In the decade of 2011-20 housing demand has reached approximately 230,000 but just 113,000 homes were built leaving a shortfall of 117,000 dwellings. The gulf between the supply of new homes and growing demand is likely to worsen as a recent baby boom pushes up the Republic’s population to its highest on record.
The CSO forecasts the Irish population will increase from 4.8million in 2016 to 5.8million in 2036. This equates to over a million more people in the State and demand for approximately 37,000 residential units per annum out to 2036.’
The shortfall of new houses and growing demand has put prices under pressure with them rising by almost 6% on average across the State. Even in the country’s most expensive area of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown house prices have climbed by more than 6% over the past year, while in the border counties they are up almost 11%.
The average price is now just over €305,000 but despite the surge, prices are still 13.5% lower than their highest level in 2007. Dublin residential property prices are almost 19% below their peak in February 2007, while residential property prices in the rest of the Republic are 16% lower than their peak in May 2007.
In a sharp rebuke of housing supply policies of the past 20 years, Ms Finnegan added: ‘In recent years, Ireland has consistently failed to meet the housing demand of its population due to prolonged inadequacies in the supply of new housing. ‘This has been a consistent point of contention… and is the fundamental reason we now have a national housing emergency.
While Dublin remains the most populated region, current forecasts suggest that the growth in population in the Mid-East region – the counties surrounding the capital – will outpace that of the city itself by 2036. Dublin’s population is forecast to grow by 242,500 while the population of Kildare, Meath and Wicklow will rise by 279,400 by 2036. This will lead to an annual housing demand of 9,100 and 7,500 units respectively over the period to 2036. Although some improvement in supply is expected in the coming years, it is still not anticipated to reach levels needed to satisfy demand.
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