Over the past few months, there have been positive noises about the housing market.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, the housing crisis is far from over. That is still years away.<\/p>\n
Like the banking crisis, problems built up over a long period and will take years to resolve.<\/p>\n
There is a shift under way, however it is a number of relatively small moves in the right direction. Here are some of them:<\/p>\n
1. House completions up<\/p>\n
The number of new homes built between July and September of this year is up 10.4% on last year.<\/p>\n
So far in 2026 there have been almost 27,000 dwellings finished.<\/p>\n
Analysts predict between 39,000 and 40,000 will be completed by the end of the year, compared to a total of 36,000 in 2025.<\/p>\n
It’s an indication of progress – but still well short of the 50,000 to 60,000 needed to meet pent-up demand estimated at 250,000 to 300,000 homes.<\/p>\n
The Government scrapped annual targets and instead said it wanted to see 300,000 homes built between 2025 and 2030.<\/p>\n
To achieve that, a substantial increase in annual output is needed.<\/p>\n
2. Mortgage lending rising<\/p>\n
Figures from the banks show the number of first-time buyer mortgages is up 9% year on year.<\/p>\n
There have been 22,600 home loans taken by first-time buyers so far this year.<\/p>\n
There is a 7% rise year on year in the number of people drawing down mortgages to move from one home to another.<\/p>\n
That indicates that there is more liquidity in the market.<\/p>\n
3. More listings<\/p>\n
Home buyers are not just buying new houses, the market for older homes is important too.<\/p>\n
There is slightly more positive news here as well. In September, 14,600 properties were listed for sale on MyHome, up 12.5% year on year, as the supply of new listings finally improves.<\/p>\n
The market has been contracting over recent years as potential sellers hesitated due to concerns about finding another home.<\/p>\n
4. Slower growth in property prices<\/p>\n
Soaring property prices is one of the symptoms of huge demand and lack of supply.<\/p>\n
This time two years ago prices were rising by 10% per annum. That increase has now slowed to 5%. Economists say it will decelerate further to 3% or 4%.<\/p>\n
Nobody is forecasting a drop in property prices because demand remains strong and Central Bank rules have prevented banks from over-lending.<\/p>\n
The market may be cooling off for a number of reasons. Higher interest rates usually dampen house price growth.<\/p>\n
The European Central Bank hiked rates from 2% to 2.5% over recent months with another rate rise expected in December.<\/p>\n
But for many buyers it has reached the point where affordability is now at or beyond their limit.<\/p>\n
5. Government policy changes<\/p>\n
The Government has introduced significant policy changes to encourage investors by altering building standards, reducing VAT on new apartments and relaxing rent controls.<\/p>\n
Opposition parties have been critical of these steps. They point out that tenants have been affected by the new rules.<\/p>\n
It comes as homeless numbers hit a record of 17,885 people in emergency accommodation.<\/p>\n
Unsurprisingly, the new measures have been welcomed by the construction industry.<\/p>\n
There is a lot the Coalition needs to do to lift the output of new housing above the critical 50,000 threshold.<\/p>\n
One of the dangers is that progress could stall because of changes in the wider economic environment.<\/p>\n
The construction industry is facing higher inflation, rising interest rates and geopolitical uncertainty which may make investors hesitant before financing new projects.<\/p>\n
Goodbody Stockbrokers chief economist Dermot O’Leary, who was a member of the State’s Housing Commission, said several policy levers need to be pulled by the Government to step up progress.<\/p>\n
He said these include “continuing fiscal supports for the social housing sector and home ownership” and “faster progress on rezoning of residential land”.<\/p>\n
Mr O’Leary also calls for a “coordinated response” on the provision of utilities such as water and electricity connections to ensure sites can be developed.<\/p>\n
In addition, he said there needs to be further work to reform the planning system.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Over the past few months, there have been positive noises about the housing market. Unfortunately, the housing crisis…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":670710,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-670709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=670709"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670709\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/670710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=670709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=670709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=670709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}