This article is from page 6 of the 2009-02-17 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 6 JPG
NEW home completions in Clare were down on the national average, with almost 1,000 fewer homes fin- ished in 2008 than in 2007.
Home completions were down 39.1 per cent, while the average national drop was 33.7 per cent.
Last year saw 1,393 new homes fin- ished in Clare while there were 2,286 finished in the county in 2007. There were 2,/27 house completion’s in the county in 2006.
The drop appears to be mainly in the development of estates in Clare with 650 individual houses being fin- ished as against 604 homes in devel- opments and 139 apartments.
Noel Moore of Costello’s auction- eers said that the decision by many developers not to build more houses in estates until they have sold the ones already built has had an impact.
“Developers were building stock and it remained unsold. So many of them called a halt to construction until the existing stock has sold,” he explained.
But there may be some small im- provement in the situation at present, the auctioneer said.
“Developers have dropped their prices and that has had a positive ef- fect. There have been sales agreed on four of fourteen properties in one development and there has been a healthy interest since prices were reduced in another development last
week, so there is Some movement.”
Also helping interest in house sales are the drop in interest rates and re- lief for first time-buyers, Noel said.
In the second-hand market there “has been a levelling off of prices and there has been some _ pick up there as a result”, said Noel.
But the Clare auctioneers said that it is still a great time for prospective buyers to hunt for bargains.
The slow down in the house build-
ing market has caused major head- aches for Clare County Council who are down millions in development levy funds which would normally be used for infrastructure and mainte- nN aleee
The figures from the Department of Environment Heritage and Local Government show that Dublin had the most new homes built last year, with 5,348 going up in the city coun- cil area.
The capital was closely followed by Cork county, where 5,091 new homes were completed last year.
Nationally, there was a 33.7 per cent drop in house construction and in Dublin this figure was 36 per cent.
In neighbouring Limerick, house construction in the county area was down 35.6 per cent but construction in Limerick City bucked the trend, rising by 9.3 per cent.