This article is from page 2 of the 2008-05-27 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 2 JPG
BUILDING started on only two houses in Clare last month as further evidence of a local housing slump.
The drive to build new homes has fallen away with Ennis-based auc- tioneer, Philip O’Reilly stating that there are 200 newly built homes in the Ennis area still remaining to be sold.
He said that the latest figures from the Department of the Environment came as no surprise, considering the amount of houses that remain un- sold.
According to department statistics, only two new house guarantee reg- istrations were made in Clare last month and this compares to the fig- ure of 41 for the corresponding pe- riod last year.
This was the second lowest in the country with only Longford hav- ing less where no new houses com- neo Neere FO aNO eee
There has been an 80 per cent drop in the number of new house registra- tions over the first four months of the year.
To the end of April, there have been only 79 new house registrations and
this compares to 398 for the corre- sponding period in 2007.
The April figures show there was an increase in house completions on March but the overall figure for the first four months are down signifi- cantly on last year.
There were 128 house completions in Clare last month, representing a 36 per cent increase on the 94 house completions in the county in March, although this was down on the 192 house completions for the corre- sponding month in 2007.
Statistics for the year to date show that 474 houses were completed –
compared with 748 for the first four months last year – a drop of 36 per cent.
Warning that the impact of the credit crunch has been underestimat- ed, Mr O’Reilly said that on a weekly basis, the lack of funding available for loans in the banks is diminish- ing and his advice to anyone who has got loan approval is to avail of it, be- cause it 1s getting harder day by day to secure approval.
“If a person needs a home, now is probably the time to buy before the mortgage market dries up further,” he said.