House completions plummet by 31%

THE house-building sector remains in free-fall with only 43,813 units being completed in the first 10 months of this year, a dramatic drop of 31% nationally.

Longford County Council region recorded one of the lowest figures for the period, 501 houses completed while Cork County Council had one of the highest rates at 4,321.

New house guarantee registrations were down 67% nationally for the first 10 months of the year, a huge drop to 11,629 units.

Dublin house completions in Fingal and South Dublin have shown the greatest decline so far this year at -57% and -44% respectively.

The number of new house registrations has been showing a decline nationally over the past two years. The declines have been most noticeable in Dublin and the greater Dublin area.

For instance there were on average 1,700 units registered in Dublin in early 2004, this has been scaled back dramatically since the third quarter of 2006 to an average of 780 units in 2007 and 420 per month in the first 10 months of 2008.

The greater Dublin area had an average of 2,400 units registered in early 2004, down to an average of 1,200 registered each month in 2007 and 540 per month in the first 10 months of 2008.

New house completions in the first 10 months of this year compared with the same period for last year show that in Dublin here were 9,770 completions as against 14,707 from last year, representing a 33.6% decrease.

In the greater Dublin area, covering Dublin City and County, Kildare, Meath and Wicklow, there were 13,980 completions compared with 20,759 for 2007 or a drop of 32.7%.