Growth in new homes build may have halted

The building of new homes may have ground to a halt in the latest quarter, official figures published yesterday suggested, though analysts insisted that the market will, in time, respond to solve the housing crisis.

The CSO figures show the production of residential properties grew by a meagre 0.1% in the three months to the end of September from the previous three months. That compares with quarterly growth rates of as much as 16.5% posted earlier this year.

However, the annual rate of new building of new homes is up almost 31% in the third quarter from a year earlier — though from a very low base.