Tender prices increase by 2%

Construction tender costs increased by 2% in the second half of last year, said the Society of Chartered Surveyors Ireland Price Index, despite the level of house completion falling to historic lows.

Chairman of the Quantity Surveying Professional Group Andrew Nugent said the prices stabilised in the first half of 2011, before rising in the second half of the year. The price rise, the first since 2007, is not due to an increase in demand but because contractors are no longer pricing work below cost, he said.

“The levelling off and slight increase in tender prices is also due to a growing realisation that pricing work at below cost and not pricing risk items in tenders is unsustainable,” he added.